Five years on, the metal is cut: Russia’s Su-75 Checkmate finally enters prototype build

When the Su-75 Checkmate first appeared at the MAKS air show in 2021, the Russian press talked in big numbers: hundreds of export orders, a third of the F-35 price tag, first flight by 2025. Five years on, none of it has materialised — no sales, no first flight, and at one point even doubt over whether the project was real. Now UAC director Vadim Badekha‘s statement to TASS that “work on Checkmate is now at the prototype-construction stage” is the first institutional acknowledgement to break that five-year silence. Sukhoi’s chief test pilot Sergei Bogdan said in November 2025 that “we have a target of a first flight within 2026” — a line UAC has now backed.

The design choices are clear: single engine, stealth airframe, internal weapons bay, modern avionics. Targeted performance puts Mach 1.8 to 2.0 top speed and a 2,800-2,900 km range on the table. The most critical line, though, is price: an estimated unit cost of around $30 million, less than half the twin-engine Su-57 class. Russian industry has pitched Checkmate from day one as “the cheap single-engine answer to the F-35.” Industry reports also suggest some systems and sub-components are transferred directly from the Su-57 programme — pointing as much to a repackaging operation as to a fresh development chain.

A fair question presses here: why does Russia need an aircraft like this? The first answer is export, not domestic. India, Vietnam, the UAE, several African states — buyers locked out of the F-35 or unable to afford it. Russian industry crafted the “affordable fifth-generation” thesis to fill that gap. The second answer is capacity: the war in Ukraine has stretched Su-57 and Su-35 production hard. A simpler, single-engine, modular design enters as a way to ease the load on Russia’s aviation lines.

Step back and the prototype move matters because it pushes Checkmate from a “capability show” into a “capability project.” But industry reporting also leaves two critical questions on the table: engine and radar. Single-engine stealth aircraft demand a very precise thrust-to-weight balance; existing Saturn 117/AL-41F1 derivatives are too heavy for the Checkmate class. And no outside source has yet confirmed serial production of an N036 Belka-derived AESA radar. If the first flight does happen in late 2026 or early 2027, Checkmate could shift from “F-35 alternative” rhetoric into actual export contracts. If not, the project slides back into another mock-up phase.

The Turkish angle: KAAN now sits on a far stronger benchmark than Checkmate

A five-year comparison produces a striking picture. When the Checkmate mock-up was unveiled at MAKS in 2021, Turkey’s National Combat Aircraft programme had not even reached roll-out. By February 2026 KAAN had completed its first flight; subsequent sorties have moved through external configuration tests, weapons integration and successor prototypes. KAAN today is a three-prototype development; Checkmate is still building its first. Turkey’s programme is a twin-engine, heavyweight aircraft in the F-22 / F-35 class, with a maximum take-off weight in the twelve-to-fourteen tonne range; Russia’s Checkmate sits in a smaller, single-engine sub-class. The two are not direct rivals — but they do compete for buyer attention in the global fifth-generation export market.

That point matters because the global fifth-generation export market is one of the most critical lines in the defence industry over the next decade. The United States has committed to roughly three thousand F-35 deliveries; Russian industry is aiming at the cheap single-engine niche with Checkmate; China is moving into the same bracket with the J-35; Europe’s FCAS and Tempest programmes are trying to leapfrog to sixth generation. KAAN positions itself in this map as a third door — close to NATO standards, in the F-35 alternative class, and open to non-NATO purchase. Worth remembering is that Indonesia’s KIZILELMA contract has already opened Turkey’s export gate in this lane; KAAN’s customer queue is expected to form along the same line. Checkmate’s move to prototype is not a real threat for Turkish industry — quite the opposite, it sharpens the message: “the clock is ticking, compress the timeline.”

Sources

• Army Recognition — “Russia Begins Construction of Redesigned Su-75 Checkmate Fifth-Generation Fighter Prototype”
• Defence Blog
• TASS — UAC director Vadim Badekha statement
• Eurasian Times
• Wikipedia — Sukhoi Su-75 Checkmate / United Aircraft Corporation

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