Both Kyiv and Moscow have increased the use of decoys to protect high-value assets from drone and missile attacks—and to deceive the other side about their actual strength.
Moscow has been quick to tout the success of its Zapad-2025 military drills with its close ally Belarus—notably attended this week by Russian President Vladimir Putin, who was spotted wearing camouflage fatigues at the Mulino training ground in the Nizhny Novgorod Region.
“The president gives a very positive assessment of the results of these drills,” Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told reporters.
However, Putin may have missed one embarrassing moment at the Severomorsk-1 Naval Air Base, where things didn’t go as planned—with an aircraft that turned out to be a decoy.
Russia’s “Zapad-2025”: A Carefully Choreographed Show of Strength
The Zapad-2025 exercises have “officially” involved approximately 13,000 troops, although some analysts speculate that that number could be even higher. It has included soldiers from more than a dozen nations, with the majority being from Russia and Belarus. Military personnel from a range of Russian-sympathetic countries in the developing world—including Burkina Faso, Congo, Mali, Iran, Niger, and Tajikistan—participated directly in the exercises, while Cambodia, China, Cuba, Kazakhstan, Mongolia, Myanmar, Nicaragua, North Korea, Pakistan, Serbia, Thailand, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), and Uzbekistan have sent observers. Surprisingly, two US military officers were spotted at the drills as observers as well.
The large-scale exercises, named “West” in Russian, have been taking place in training grounds across Russia and Belarus, along with naval drills in the Baltic and Barents Seas.
Pay No Attention to the Inflatable Aircraft
Although officially smaller than past Zapad war games due to the demands of the war in Ukraine, the event was meant to signal that Russia remains a significant power and a threat to the West. Accordingly, Zapad-2025 included exercises on land, sea, and in the air.
However, as defense analyst Guy Plopsky noted from the shared footage, all was not quite as it seemed.
“Several stills from a new Russian MoD video showing a Su-33 (B/N ’79’ Red / RF-33701) from the 279th OKIAP taxiing to the runway at Severomorsk-1 during ‘Zapad-2025.’ It is seen armed with two R-73K & two R-27R AAMs. Note the Flanker-resembling inflatable decoy in the background,” wrote Plopsky in a post on X (formerly Twitter).
In other words, it appears that not all of the planes Russia brought to the exercises were genuine.
It is unclear if the Russian decoy was deployed to the base as part of the Zapad-2025 wargames, or was placed there to suggest that the Russian Aerospace Forces have more aircraft at the ready. The Kremlin has largely failed to replace its losses of combat aircraft from its ongoing war in Ukraine.
There is another possibility, namely that the decoy was intended to deceive Western observers about the Kremlin’s military strength.
Russia and Ukraine Are Both Using Fake Equipment
As previously reported, both Kyiv and Moscow have increased the use of decoys to protect high-value assets from drone and missile attacks. Russia has been known to place dummy aircraft at its remote air bases—which have increasingly come under Ukrainian drone attacks, including the daring Operation Spiderweb assaults back in June.
It is possible that the decoy resembling a Sukhoi Su-27 (NATO reporting name “Flanker”) was part of those efforts, and from the air it might look convincing, even if it was “spotted comically sagging by a runway,” as TVP World reported.
The decoy was more convincing than the painted Tupolev Tu-95 (NATO reporting name “Bear”) silhouettes that were painted on runways at the Russian Engels Airbase (Engels-2). Those images quickly went viral on social media, rendering Russia’s efforts at deception ineffective. Now that images of the inflatable Su-27 at Severomorsk-1 have also circulated online, Ukraine’s security forces will likely take a much closer look to determine what might be a real high-value target and what might just be a decoy.
About the Author: Peter Suciu
Peter Suciu has contributed over 3,200 published pieces to more than four dozen magazines and websites over a 30-year career in journalism. He regularly writes about military hardware, firearms history, cybersecurity, politics, and international affairs. Peter is also a contributing writer for Forbes and Clearance Jobs. He is based in Michigan. You can follow him on Twitter: @PeterSuciu. You can email the author: [email protected].
Image: Wikimedia Commons.
