Several large explosions occurred at the Saky airbase in the town of Novofedorivka, Crimea, on 9 August 2022, during the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The military base was seized by Russian forces during the 2014 annexation of Crimea, part of the Russo-Ukrainian War. The explosions destroyed a number of Russian warplanes and caused substantial other damage. Ukrainian authorities tacitly took responsibility at first, until four weeks after the event, when Valerii Zaluzhnyi, Ukraine's military commander, explicitly said that it had been a Ukrainian missile strike.

The Sukhoi Su-30 is a twin-engine, two-seat supermaneuverable fighter aircraft developed in the Soviet Union by Russia's Sukhoi Aviation Corporation. It is a multirole fighter for all-weather, air-to-air and air interdiction missions.