Sukhoi Su-27M2

Su-27M2 is the designation given to the Kazakhstan Air Force's single-seat Su-27 fighters after they went through the upgrade contracted with Belarus and carried out at the 558 Aircraft Repair Plant in Baranovichi. It is the single-seat counterpart of the two-seat Su-27UBM2 from the same programme: according to a Lenta.ru report of 29 June 2010, citing the Russian CAMTO centre and Jane's International Defence Review, the Kazakh air force brought its Su-27s and Su-27UBs up to Su-27M2 and Su-27UBM2 standard. It was not a newly built aircraft but an upgrade of airframes already in service.

It should not be confused with the Soviet Su-27M, the T-10M prototype that led to the first “Su-35”, with the Russian Su-27SM and Su-27SM3 upgrades from Komsomolsk-on-Amur, or with the Ukrainian Su-27S1M and Su-27P1M: the Su-27M2 is a Kazakh programme carried out in a Belarusian workshop.

Kazakhstan received its Su-27s from Russia in the second half of the 1990s. The Kazakh Ministry of Defence, answering a query from informburo.kz, dated their entry into service to 1996; the English Wikipedia speaks of 26 Su-27s received from Russia between 1996 and 2001, and the Su-27 Flanker Family blog places the arrival of Su-27s and Su-27UBs in 1999, as compensation for the return of Tu-95 bombers to Russia. The sources disagree on the exact baseline version: Lenta.ru simply says “Su-27”, whereas the English Wikipedia defines the Su-27M2 as the Kazakh modernised version of the Su-27P, the air-defence interceptor. The discrepancy is noted here, not resolved.

The contract with Belarus was signed in 2007, according to Lenta.ru, and provided for the Belarusian side to upgrade ten aircraft. Su-27 Flanker Family describes it as a tender won in 2009 by the 558 plant to upgrade ten Kazakh Sukhois. Both sources agree on the figure of ten, but that figure covers single-seaters and two-seaters together: neither says how many emerged as Su-27M2s.

The first upgraded aircraft reached Kazakhstan in December 2009. According to Su-27 Flanker Family there were two: the two-seat Su-27UB number 50 and the single-seat Su-27 number 05, already fitted with satellite navigation and expanded weaponry, delivered to Taldykorgan. The same blog says the upgrade was completed in June 2010. Lenta.ru adds that the improved aircraft joined the “Barsy Zhetysu” squadron of the 604th air base at Taldykorgan.

The stated aim of the programme, according to Lenta.ru, was to give Kazakhstan multirole aircraft able to employ a wide range of weapons. For the upgraded fighters as a whole the report cites an X-band jamming system of Belarusian design and the Litening-3 targeting pod from Israel's Rafael (spelled “Lightning-3” in the text), plus improved accuracy of the navigation system; of the single-seater it says specifically that it gained the ability to pass data on ground and air targets to other aircraft in the group and to ground stations and command centres. The upgraded N001 radar, the new engine control and diagnostics system and the detailed list of missiles and bombs given by Lenta.ru are expressly attributed to the Su-27UBM2, so they are not carried over to the single-seater here.

In mid-2010 Lenta.ru counted 34 Su-27S and Su-27UB aircraft in the Kazakh air force and acknowledged that it was not known whether all of them would be brought to M2 standard. Years later the Kazakh Ministry of Defence confirmed to informburo.kz that the overhaul and upgrade of fighters of this modification had been carried out in 2010 by the 558 plant at Baranovichi. It did so after a Su-27 crashed near Taldykorgan on the evening of 21 December during a training flight: the pilot, Adilbek Iskakov, steered the aircraft away from a populated area before ejecting, and former defence minister Mukhtar Altynbayev blamed the crash on a fuel-system failure.

The Russian Wikipedia does not use “Su-27M2”: it lists Su-27P, Su-27BM2 and Su-27UBM2 at the 604th air base at Taldykorgan, part of them in storage, and Su-27P and Su-27UBM2 at the 612th air base at Aktau, and puts the Kazakh fleet in 2023 at 20 Su-27s and 3 Su-27UBs, some of them brought to BM/UBM level. The English Wikipedia lists the Su-27M2 and the Su-27BM2 separately, the latter as a “Belarusian modernised Su-27P for the Kazakhstan Air Force”. Both labels may well describe the same aircraft, but no source confirms it; the M2 form is kept here because it is the one used by the press at the time of the deliveries.