MiG-29s at Kubinka

The Swifts grew out of the first MiG-29 squadron at Kubinka. Pilots of the 234th Guards Fighter Aviation Regiment began flying the new fighter in August 1983, and by summer 1984 a four-ship was flying group aerobatics. In 1986 six MiG-29s visited Rissala in Finland, the first display of Soviet fourth-generation fighters abroad, followed by Farnborough in 1988 and Le Bourget in 1989. On 6 May 1991 the team flew publicly under its new name for the first time. The name was chosen by the air force commander, General Nikolai Antoshkin, and the first leader was Aleksandr Kutuzov, with six pilots.

Reims, Langkawi and a world tour

The team’s first public display abroad came in May 1992 at Reims, for the 50th anniversary of the Normandie-Niemen regiment; that September it flew alongside the visiting Blue Angels at Kubinka. In 1993 the Swifts were named best aerobatic team at an air show in Malaysia, where four MiG-29s flown in dismantled inside an An-124 were reassembled in three days. Over thirty-five years the team has displayed in 28 countries by the team’s count, among them Belgium, Hungary, the Netherlands, Thailand, Vietnam, China, Mongolia and the United Arab Emirates.

Collapse and rebirth

The 1990s were hard on the team. By 2000 it had fallen to four aircraft, and aerobaticteams.net records that it was effectively disbanded in 1999 through pilot retirements and work on the Kubinka airfield, then re-formed with new pilots on 23 November 2000, returning to six aircraft in 2003. That winter the original white and blue scheme gave way to the current red, white and blue livery with a swift silhouette on the fuselage. The team’s one serious accident came on 27 July 2006, when a MiG-29UB went off the runway on take-off at Bolshoe Savino, Perm; both pilots ejected.

The Kubinka Diamond

From 2003 the Swifts flew regularly with the Su-27 team Russian Knights, also based at Kubinka. The two teams flew together over Red Square in 2002 and 2003, a ten-aircraft joint formation flew in March 2003, and they developed the nine-aircraft “Kubinka Diamond”, in which MiG-29s and Flankers fly synchronised aerobatics in one formation despite different types. At MAKS in 2007 the mixed formation flew a barrel roll. The Swifts have flown in the Victory Day parade over Red Square since 2005. Their signature figure is the “tulip”, in which a tight formation splits outwards while firing flares.

Thirty-five years on

The Swifts marked their 35th anniversary on 6 May 2026. They still fly the MiG-29 and two-seat MiG-29UB, now within the Kubinka demonstration centre, with Colonel Denis Kuznetsov as commander and seven pilots, according to Rossiyskaya Gazeta. In April 2025 the team flew in Mongolia for the centenary of the Mongolian air force. Displays normally use six aircraft and include more than thirty figures, flown with about a metre between wingtips.