The first four Su-35S – widely considered the most advanced heavy, long-range multirole fighter of the VKS – were deployed to Hmeimim AB in January 2016, and were drawn from the Privolzhskiy AB’s 18th Aviation Centre/116th Training Centre. Additional batches have been rotated through Syria ever since, so that most of the examples that served there collected about 150-170 mission markings. Red or white stars were applied above the latter, for uknown reasons. Their armament consisted of general-purpose bombs and RBKs, R-27Rs and R-73s early on: R-77 became more common only in mid-2016. While L005 Sorbstiya-series wingtip ECM-pods were used early on, by early 2018 the latest KNIRTI SAP-518 ECM-pods (illustrated here, and analogue to the ALQ-99 of the Boeing EA-18G Growler) appear to have become more common. (Artwork by Tom Cooper)