Algeria, the first export customer for Sukhoi's Su-34 medium bomber

As expected, and probably confirmed by high placed officials within Russia's Military-Industrial Complex through the Russian press of the information cited by MENADEFENSE, the Force Aérienne Algérienne (Algerian Air Force) will receive six Sukhoi Su-34 side-by-side medium bombers before the end of 2021. In December 2019 and December 2020, Scramble Magazine wrote about the possibilities of an upcoming Algerian Su-34 orders.

It took more than eight years of negotiations with ups and downs on both the side of Russia and Algeria to finally come to an acceptable deal. In the past Russia had offered a very degraded export version of the Su-34. Scramble Magazine assesses that Algeria did not want the degraded Su-34 and preferred to upgrade the older Su-24 stablemate, which since have undergone major modernisations.

Although not confirmed, multiple sources have now stated that in January 2021, the production of the first batch of six Su-34s for Algeria has started. This batch must be ready before the end of 2021 and will be used for the training of Algerian (Instructor) pilots and maintenance personnel. Training will start in Russia from early 2022. The rest of the, in total fourteen, Su-34s will be delivered in 2022 and 2023.

The renewed Algerian interest in the Su-34 came after the campaign in Syria, where it demonstrated its evaluated combat capabilities. The Russian State Flight Test Centre at Akhtubinsk was largely responsible for the updated combat capabilities.

Scramble Magazine assesses that the Algerian variant will be called the Su-34ME and it is expected that the main difference between the version used by Russia, and the "ME" version acquired by Algeria, will be the Identification, Friend or Foe (IFF) and other communications systems. The rest will be the same including the various weapons which were also tested and evaluated in and over Syria.

Photo: Vadim Savitsky, kindly provided by RussianPlanes.net