The Belarusian Air Force has gone through several rounds of transformation since the disintegration of the Soviet Union in 1991, with the vast majority of its fleet of several hundred fighter aircraft inherited from that period being retired and either sold or scrapped, leaving it with an estimated 40 fighters in service today. Following the retirement of its MiG-25 interceptors, MiG-23 fighters and Su-24 strike fighters, the latter two which were exported to Syria and Sudan respectively, the country in December 2012 retired its Su-27 Flanker heavyweight air superiority fighters which had formed the elite of the fleet. The retirement of an estimated 22 of these aircraft, which were placed in storage, left the MiG-29 as its sole operational fighter class, with the MiG having been developed in parallel as a lighter and shorter ranged counterpart. Although the Su-27 is considered a far more capable fighter class, and at the end of the Cold War was still widely considered the world’s most capable air superiority fighter, the significant discrepancy in operational costs favouring the MiG-29 led to a decision to rely on the aircraft and modernise them domestically.
Regarding the reason for the retirement of the Su-27, Chief of the Air Force and Air Defense of the Armed Forces of Belarus Major General Oleg Dvigalev started: “Su-27 is a very expensive aircraft to operate, it burns a lot of fuel. It is inadvisable in conditions of the small territory of Belarus. Even for the sake of checking control targets we had to raise Su-27 from, lets say, the airbase in Baranovichi and keep it in the air for virtually 1.5 hours after the mission was over for the sake of consuming the rest of the fuel. An aircraft had to consume 2-3 tonnes of aviation kerosene for nothing. It was wasteful. Therefore, we no longer use the aircraft.” This made Belarus the only Su-27 operator in the world to have retired the aircraft from service. Despite having retired the Su-27, Belarus would continue to serve as a major hub for the refurbishment and modernisation of the Su-27 and its close derivative the Su-30MK, providing these services to states ranging from Vietnam to Angola which imported these aircraft from Russia in the 1990s and 2000s. These services were performed at Factory No. 558 in Baranovichi.
Belarus has been confirmed to have brought a single Su-27 back into service, namely a Su-27UB twin seat fighter, known in the West as the Flanker-B. This aircraft, Su-27 Number 61, is reported to have been extensively modernised at Factory No. 558, and is very closely related to the Su-30MK which the facility has long provided modernisation services for. The aircraft’s purpose is to serve as a trainer to prepare pilots and maintenance crews for operations in the Belarusian Air Force’s newly acquired Su-30SM fighters, which were ordered under a $600 million contract signed in June 2017 and began deliveriesd in August 2019. The Su-30SM is a Su-27 derivative that differs more radically from the original than the Su-30MKs Belarus has worked with, and is derived from the Su-30MKI fighter developed for the Indian Air Force.
The modification of an older fighter to serve as a trainer for a newer derivative of the same design is far from unprecedented, and notably mirrors Israel’s modification of its Cold War era F-15B and F-15D fighters to support training on the F-15I acquired in the 1990s – the former two being broad equivalents to the Su-27UB and the latter the Su-30. Belarus is expected to transition from a reliance on medium weight MiG-29s back to a reliance on heavyweight Flanker aircraft, with its current order for 12 Su-30SMs expected to be followed by 12 more aircraft which between them will completely replace its approximately 38 MiG-29s. As the Su-30SM fleet expands, the possibility remains that a second Su-27UB will be brought out of storage for training purposes, thus allowing the Su-30 fleet to be concentrated on frontline operations.