Russian media claims Su-35 fighter jets 'humiliated' and backed down US F/A-18s

REUTERS/Pascal Rossignol

A Sukhoi SU-35 fighter aircraft participates in a flying display during the 50th Paris Air Show at the Le Bourget airport near Paris, June 23, 2013.

• Russian media on Monday erupted with a social media frenzy after the release of photos that look to show a US Navy F/A-18 Super Hornet locked in the crosshairs of a Russian fighter jet during mock combat. 
• A source claiming to represent a Russian fighter jet pilot surfaced with the picture saying that two Su-35s tailed and "humiliated" the US jets until Japanese F-15 surfaced to support the F/A-18s, which the Russians also claimed to have out-maneuvered and embarrassed.
• The US neither confirmed or denied the incident, but US Navy F/A-18s have operated in the area recently. 
• Russian media runs a lot of propaganda stories, and this one doesn't prove anything. 

Russian media on Monday erupted with a social media frenzy after the release of photos that look to show a US Navy F/A-18 Super Hornet locked in the crosshairs of a Russian fighter jet. 

Online, a source claiming to represent a Russian fighter jet pilot surfaced with the picture saying that two Su-35s tailed and "humiliated" the US jets until Japanese F-15 surfaced to support the F/A-18s, which the Russians also claimed to have out-maneuvered and embarrassed.

Russian commenters rushed to brand the incident proof of the "total superiority of the Russian and the total humiliation of the Americans."

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The same source previously claimed to have beaten a US F-22 stealth fighter in a mock dogfight in the skies above Syria, but this incident supposedly took place over Russia's far east region.

The source recently became the first to feature images of Russia's new stealth combat drone, suggesting some degree of official linkage or access to the Russian military. Russian media, for its part, accepts the source's claims wholesale. 

Lt. Cmdr. Joe Hontz, a US European Command spokesman, told Business Insider that US "aircraft and ships routinely interact with Russian units in international airspace and seas and most interactions are safe and professional."

"Unless an interaction is unsafe, we will not discuss specific details," Ingle continued.

This suggests that either the encounter happened and was deemed totally safe, or that the encounter did not happen.

The US did have an aircraft carrier, the USS Ronald Regan, in the area of Russia's far east and Japan as recently as last week. Japanese fighter jets regularly train with the US. 

Read more: A US Air Force F-16 painted like Russia's Su-57 could give the US a major combat advantage

Russia's Su-35 holds several advantages over US F/A-18s in dogfights, or fighting scenarios that involve close in turning and maneuvering, but as Business Insider has extensively reported, dogfighting, the focus of World War II air-to-air combat, has taken on a drastically reduced importance in real combat.

The F-15's dogfighting abilities more closely match up with the Su-35, but, again, these jets now mainly seek to fight and win medium-range standoffs with guided missiles, rather than participate in dogfights.

Additionally, Russian media has a history of running with tales of military or moral victories in their armed forces that usually end with something for Russians to cheer about at the expense of US, which is usually exposed as incompetent.