Negotiations with Jakarta on the possible delivery of fighter aircraft began in 2015. Then the Indonesian military announced that the president had directly instructed to purchase the Su-35 to replace the outdated American F-5 Tiger fighter jets. Purchased fighters should be part of the 11th Squadron of the 5th Aviation Wing of the Indonesian Air Force (Sultan Hasanuddin air force base in Makassar, Sulawesi). Indonesia signed a contract for the Russian supply worth $ 1.154 billion in February of this year, becoming the second foreign customer of this type of fighter. For the first time, an agreement with Russia was signed by China in 2015, ordering 24 fighter aircraft with a total value of over $ 2 billion.
Shortly before the signing, the visit to Indonesia of the Russian delegation coincided with the arrival of US Secretary of Defense James Mattis. Then he threatened to stop the supply of spare parts for American aircraft in service. In case of refusal from the contract with Russia, the minister promised to organize the delivery of F-16 fighter jets. According to the source, despite the fact that the decision to purchase fighters was made long before the imposition of sanctions, the US authorities have not yet expressed a clear position on this issue.
Problems with the contract also arose because of the search for the bank to conduct the transaction. Part of the contract should be covered by a Russian commercial loan, however, banks also fear US sanctions and do not want to participate in the transaction with Rosoboronexport. According to one of the sources, "Kommersant", the Russian authorities considered as a creditor of VTB, but representatives of the bank denied this information.
