In the past few days, Bloomberg had quoted an unnamed official “familiar with the matter” on 12 March as saying that Jakarta had recently decided against moving ahead with the plan to procure the 11 fighter aircraft for about USD1.1 billion. The director of Russia's Federal Service for Military-Technical Cooperation (FSVTS), said on 16 March, denying media reports that Jakarta, under US pressure, has dropped a deal to buy 11 of the Russian-made fighters. “There is no official cancellation of the [Indonesian] order [for the Su-35s],” Shugayev told the news channel. “We haven't received any papers regarding the issue and haven't been told about it.”

The deal between Indonesia and Russia has been in negotiations since 2017, and a contract was signed in February 2018 for the sale of 11 Sukhoi Su-35