Russia’s Workhorse in Ukraine (The Su-25 Frogfoot)

As Russia’s war of aggression rages on in Ukraine, the world has been stunned by two separate, but tightly interrelated revelations. On the one hand, Russia’s military has been brought to heel far quicker than the world thought possible, utterly stymied by an enemy that, prior to war, nobody had believed could stand against it. But on the other, Russian troops, generals, and political leaders have responded with overwhelming brutality, including targeted attacks on civilians, torture, and forced deportations in occupied zones. It has been a catastrophic war thus far, and one that shows no sign of ending anytime soon.

At the center of Russia’s offensive, is the Sukhoi Company’s Su-25, a close-air-support plane that has been critical in helping Russian ground troops capture territory, and hold onto it as best they can. But the Su-25 is present on both sides of the war, and it’s been nearly as important for the Ukrainian defense as it’s been for the Russian invasion. Named the Grach in Russia, better-known by its NATO reporting name of Frogfoot, the Su-25 is a workhorse in battlefields and hot zones around the world, and as it comes up on half a century in the skies, there’s no telling when its retirement date might come.

Design and Development

The Frogfoot has been in service for a very long time, and much like the American plane that serves the same mission role, the A-10 Warthog, the Frogfoot was an endeavor into building a new kind of aircraft. In World War II and subsequent conflicts, Soviet leaders had become acutely aware of the ways that air, land, and sea combat tended to flow together, instead of staying within separate domains; naval air power, for example, had turned the tide of the Pacific theater. But for land-based forces, air support had its own myriad benefits, where a single strafe from a fighter plane or a bombing run on an enemy position could turn the tide of battles that might otherwise take days to resolve.

But the fighter and bomber aircraft of the time were ill-equipped to make effective attacks on ground targets, especially if the enemy was prepared to deal with an aircraft overhead. Pilots were vulnerable to direct fire, even from small arms, and ground-launched missiles posed a particular danger to the soft underbelly of a plane. At the same time, most aircraft had to travel at high speeds in order to stay in the air, giving them a very short window of effectiveness and making it difficult to maintain visual contact on the enemy’s position—after all, in order to see the enemy, a plane had to be pointed toward the enemy, meaning that they’d also be hurtling toward the ground at hundreds of miles an hour.

The answer, according to aircraft designer Pavel Sukhoi—and, yes, he does have something to do with the Sukhoi company—was to develop a specialized aircraft that could directly solve these issues. Then known as Sukhoi Design Bureau, the company began exploratory work into what a ground-attack aircraft might look like, aided closely by the Soviet Aviation Ministry and Defense Ministry. As such, they had an upper hand when in 1969, the Soviet Union announced a competition to design a new close-support plane, and despite competition from the Yakovlev, Mikoyan, and Ilyushin design bureaus, Sukhoi was able to secure a contract. It eventually beat out the so-called “most gorgeously ugly combat jet ever”, the experimental Ilyushin Il-102, with a prototype known as the T-8 that had taken Sukhoi some five years to assemble. The T-8 would go on to be accepted for mass-production after passing state trials, and the official plane, the Su-25, would be assembled in the then-Soviet Republic of Georgia, which would retain production capacity for the Su-25 for its entire service life.

Specs, Capabilities, and Proliferation

The plane that Sukhoi designed was made for one purpose, and one purpose only. Incapable of competently engaging in air-to-air dogfights, with nowhere near the payload or range to be a strategic bomber, and flying far too low and slow to perform reconnaissance or evade an enemy aircraft, the Frogfoot was nonetheless perfect to operate in the skies immediately above a battlefield or hot zone, where its outwardly unimpressive specifications made it into a very dangerous weapon.

Flown by a single pilot and using two powerful Soyuz-Tumansky R-195 turbojet engines, the Frogfoot’s airframe was built around its weapons systems. The plane features a 30-millimeter autocannon and two detachable gun pods, each adding another autocannon to the mix, making it ideal for strafing missions low to the ground. Its eleven external hardpoints can carry nearly ten thousand pounds of weaponry, including rocket pods, air-to-air and air-to-surface missiles, and free-falling or guided bombs.

Like we said before, it’s not fast—it tops out at about 975 kilometers per hour, just over 600 miles per hour, but with a stall speed much closer to 100 miles an hour, it’s ideal for flying low and slow over enemy positions while taking its sweet time to wreak havoc. Similarly, it’s only got a service ceiling of some seven thousand meters, but it can make that climb in about two minutes flat, in case it needs to get out of the range of, say, anti-aircraft munitions fired from the ground. And granted, it’s only got a combat range of about a thousand kilometers, but considering that it’s meant to be used on the edges of active combat zones, it’s not intended to fly to the end of its range very often.

With a wingspan of 14 and a half meters and a length of fifteen and a half, its proportions are functionally square—not meant for fast or long flights, but ideal when hugging close to terrain or flying in relatively uncontested airspace.

Inside the plane, the pilot is protected by an enclosure of welded titanium, with the pilot also situated relatively low in the cockpit—not an ergonomic sign, and not really one that lets a pilot see behind them, but ideal for ensuring that pilots will survive incoming rockets or gunfire. The airframe is constructed from a combination of aluminum, steel, and titanium, making the whole fuselage resilient against small-arms fire, while ensuring that the critical parts of the internal structure can withstand bigger hits. It also includes self-defense measures including flares, chaff dispensers, and a radar warning receiver, plus the equipment to fly at night or in difficult conditions.

On a practical level, the Frogfoot is built to fly under heavy enemy fire, up-close and personal in a way that most fighter or bomber aircraft will never know. It’s built to be easy to use, easy to maintain, highly maneuverable, dog-tough, and armed to the teeth, and in all those areas, the plane has held up through time. In fact, it’s held up so well that it’s become an export favorite around the world.

Not just the Soviet Union, but Iran, Czechoslovakia, Sudan, Peru, Iraq, Kazakhstan, North Korea, Ukraine, Georgia, Belarus, Armenia, Uzbekistan, and several other nations have fielded their own squadrons of Frogfoot jets at one time or another, and even today, they’re the go-to choice for close air support in many of the world’s air forces. Fitting with its role, most countries don’t actually need that many Frogfoots—after all, just one of them can have a truly outsize impact on what would otherwise be a land battle. But nonetheless, Sukhoi would go on to make well over a thousand, and with so many planes now in the hands of so many nations, they’ve got a tendency to pop up unexpectedly under new ownership from time to time.

New variants have also popped up, with a limited degree of success, including a trainer version, a tank-buster aircraft, and a successor craft which never really got off the ground, both literally and metaphorically.

Role in the Skies

The Frogfoot got its first taste of battle during the Soviet-Afghan War of the 1980s, where squadrons began to conduct airstrikes on dug-in, mountainous defensive positions and the many cave networks of Afghanistan. Several dozen of the Su-25s would see action in the war, including many of the earliest ones off the production line, and up to fifty would be deployed to Afghanistan at a given time. Over the course of the war, they performed a collective sixty thousand sorties, as many as 360 per year per plane.

Those kinds of numbers only reinforce the Frogfoot’s ability to fit the role the Soviets were looking for: a plane that could handle quick turnarounds, withstand enemy fire without much cause for concern, and be maintained over the course of a couple of hours, not a couple of days. They also paired quite well with Russia’s Mi-24 attack helicopters, and quickly gained the respect of ground troops.

But over the course of the eight-year conflict, a little under two dozen Su-25s were lost in combat operations, while nine others were lost while parked. Granted, twenty or so planes shot down in a total of sixty thousand sorties is a very solid success rate, but they also were a harsh criticism of the early Frogfoots’ ability to protect their pilots, which was perhaps less certain than was previously thought. Learning from the lessons of Afghanistan, future versions of the plane featured improved damage control measures, including the aforementioned titanium-armored cockpit, which hadn’t been included in the first line of Su-25s. The planes also received explosion-proof fuel tanks, and other tweaks that were meant to make the Frogfoot more survivable in areas that were rich with hostiles, instead of being actively contested between hostile and friendly troops.

After Afghanistan, the Frogfoot showed up in more and more conflicts around the world. In the Iran-Iraq War, Iraqi Frogfoots carried out some nine hundred combat sorties, with individual planes flying as many as fifteen sorties per day. In those nine hundred sorties, only one plane was shot down, and the pilot ended up surviving. In the Gulf War, those same Iraqi Frogfoots were mostly unable to get into the skies quickly enough to oppose the US-led coalition, and the two planes that tried to engage in combat were shot down by American F-15C Eagle fighters, although it’s worth noting that air-to-air combat is absolutely not part of the Frogfoot’s mandate. Several of the planes would be shot down in Georgia in 1993, but in Russia’s First Chechen War, they would be responsible for destroying basically the entirety of Chechnya’s air force where it sat on the ground. Again, the Su-25s would fly thousands upon thousands of sorties, at the expense of just four aircraft shot down, largely due to Chechnya’s lack of any real air-defense systems.

The Frogfoot showed up again in the Second Chechen War, and in the service of the Ethiopian, Macedonian, Sudanese, and Ivorian Air Forces. In 2008, they showed up on both sides of the war between Russia and Georgia, including in a Russian attack, perpetrated by Su-25s, against the Georgian manufacturing plant responsible for producing Su-25s. They were an integral part of the war against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria during the 2010s, both under the command of Iraq and Russia, and they featured heavily in the 2020 conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan.

Updated designs have been in circulation during this time, featuring new navigation tools, new defensive countermeasures, and new radar systems. Georgia fielded its own improvement in cooperation with Israel, the Su-25KM Scorpion, which integrates advanced avionics, a modern cockpit design, and compatibility with NATO weapons systems, as well as Russian ones. However, only a few Scorpions were ever produced.

Most recently, the Su-25 has been an unavoidable aspect of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, where it has filled its close-air-support role on both sides of the conflict, often with devastating effects. Since both sides are well aware of the plane’s capabilities and weaknesses, and both sides possess more than enough weaponry to shoot the occasional Frogfoot down, a number of Su-25s have been confirmed as destroyed. During years of low-grade conflict in the Donbas region of Ukraine, six Ukrainian Frogfoots were lost, whereas since Russia’s invasion in 2022, twenty-two have been confirmed destroyed on the Ukrainian side, and twenty-seven have been lost on the Russian side. Of course, these are only numbers that can be confirmed, at the time that this video was written, so by the time you’re seeing this, it’s likely that that number has only increased.

But the rates at which these planes are being shot down, is evidence of their extensive utilization by both sides involved with the war—and it stands to reason that the Su-25 is probably an ideal weapon of choice in the grinding urban warfare seen in Bakhmut and elsewhere, or otherwise in the trench battles taking place in the Ukrainian countryside. Everywhere battles take place, the Frogfoot is likely to follow, and although it’s impossible as outside observers to know just how many combat sorties the Frogfoot is flying or just how much of an impact it’s had, the plane’s performance in past wars is proof positive that it’s probably having a major effect today.

Review

So, what precisely do we make of the Frogfoot, of its capabilities, its service record, and its utilization by the militaries of the world? Well, on the basis of design and mission performance, it’s difficult to identify ways that the Frogfoot has failed in its intended capacity, while there’s more than enough evidence to indicate that it’s been successful. The plane is capable of flying intense close-air-support missions, often back-to-back-to-back, and it’s shown itself to be tough and survivable even under harsh conditions. Its capabilities rival the US-made A-10 Warthog, and it’s far more proven on the front lines, under more difficult conditions, and sometimes on both sides of a battle.

And while the Su-25 has sustained significant losses of aircraft, sometimes taking their pilots down with them, these numbers must be viewed in context to the ungodly numbers of combat sorties these planes will often fly. Unlike Russia’s tanks, for example, the Su-25 doesn’t seem to have that one critical weak spot that a rocket-propelled grenade can exploit, but subject any aircraft to enough enemy fire, and it’s bound to hit its limit eventually. If a Frogfoot flies, say, a thousand combat sorties, it’s highly unlikely to come out unscathed, but the fact that it can fly those thousand hypothetical sorties, survive all but one or two, and be turned around on an hour’s notice to fly again? All things considered, the Frogfoot is very good at its job, even despite occasional losses.

Now, it’s important to note that even despite its effectiveness, the Su-25 is far from a wonder-weapon. Expose it to conditions where, say, an enemy fighter plane is nearby, and it’ll immediately be outmatched, even before we specify which fighter plane we’re dealing with. The Frogfoot absolutely can be beaten, as both sides have shown in Ukraine and elsewhere, and it is most definitely not a multirole aircraft, in any sense of the word.

But strictly in terms of what the Frogfoot does well, strictly in terms of the role it was built to perform, its service record is unmatched. It’s the backbone of the combined air-and-land war in Ukraine, on both sides, and with no successor craft on the horizon that can do precisely what the Su-25 does, it’s most likely going to continue flying for decades to come.

Key Takeaways

• The Su-25 Frogfoot is a close-air-support plane crucial in Russia’s Ukraine invasion.
• The Frogfoot’s design focuses on ground attack, with heavy armament and durability.
• Both Russia and Ukraine use the Su-25, highlighting its importance in modern warfare.
• The Su-25 has a proven track record in various conflicts, showing its effectiveness.
• Despite losses, the Frogfoot’s ability to fly multiple sorties makes it valuable.

Sources

• Original MegaProjects video: Russia’s Workhorse in Ukraine (The Su-25 Frogfoot)
• https://web.archive.org/web/20150228025651/http://www.sukhoi.org/eng/planes/military/su25k/history/
• https://www.airforce-technology.com/projects/su25/
• https://aviationvoice.com/russia-has-stopped-production-of-su-25-201702201346/
• http://mashar.free.fr/mil_avi.htm
• https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-1996-05-06-9605060132-story.html
• https://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE69L4ON20101022
• http://www.military-today.com/aircraft/sukhoi_su25_frogfoot.htm
• http://www.airvectors.net/avsu25.html
• https://man.fas.org/dod-101/sys/ac/row/su-25.htm
• https://defensebridge.com/article/exploring-the-su-25-frogfoot-history-design-and-capabilities.html
• https://www.businessinsider.com/ukraine-shot-down-russian-su-25-jet-revenge-shelling-reports-2023-2
• https://frontierindia.com/how-the-russians-and-ukrainians-use-their-su-25-flying-tanks/
• Hero image source by Сергій Лемеха / АрміяInform / openverse, by.

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