During his visit to Moscow, the King of Malaysia, Sultan Ibrahim Ismail, was shown the fifth-generation Su-57E fighter jet. Presumably, the leadership of the Asian state is evaluating the possibility of acquiring the new Russian-made aircraft.
The Malaysian Air Force already operates 18 Russian Su-30MKM fighters, so a fleet change is not out of the question. Earlier, at the Defence Services Asia exhibition in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysian journalist Jonathan Edward stated that the Russian Su-57 surpasses the American F-35 in terms of cost-effectiveness and combat efficiency.
The Malaysian Air Force has highly praised the Russian Su-30MKM fighters for almost 20 years of operation. This was previously reported by the Russian Ambassador to the Asian state, Nail Latypov, who called such an attitude towards domestic equipment a good basis for the development of military-technical cooperation.
In August 2003, Malaysia signed a contract for the purchase of 18 Su-30 fighters in the MKM modification. The deal was worth 900 million dollars. The aircraft were delivered in batches from 2007 to 2009. How many of them are currently combat-ready is unknown.