Russia’s Southern Military District is to receive new Su-57 stealth fighters to bolster its capabilities in 2020, Commander of the Fourth Air and Air Defense Force Major General Nikolai Gostev said on Monday.

No further details on the Su-57’s orders have been adduced.

The Su-57 is a Russian-made fifth-generation stealth fighter designed to destroy all types of air targets at long and short ranges and hit the enemy ground and naval targets, overcoming its air defense capabilities.

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Vladimir Putin said that Russia’s Su-57 stealth fighter jet is the world’s best plane “by all its operational characteristics and by its armament”.

“This is the best plane today, the world’s best aircraft,” Putin said at a meeting with the winners of the Russian Leaders contest. This is the world’s best plane “by all its operational characteristics and by its armament,” the Russian leader added.

“No other aircraft can fly as well as our plane,” the head of the Russian state stressed.

The TASS news agency says that the Russian Defense Ministry and the Sukhoi company signed a contract on the delivery of the first two Sukhoi Su-57 aircraft at the International Military and Technical Forum on August 22, 2018.

Deputy Defense Minister Alexei Krivoruchko said then that the military would receive the first Su-57 out of the planned 15 aircraft in 2019.