>>52460
>or the air defense has more holes than Swiss cheese.
The Ukrainians are fairly mobile with their AA plaforms so the Russian's would find it hard to guarantee that there were no patriot batteries in the area, I don't think the Russians would risk it.

>They add more firepower to one pilot, more rockets and bombs, but also they help the Su-57 remain stealthy
I get the reason for the drone but not why the Russians would have used it where they were. What were they doing that was so important that it was worth sending a valuable experimental assets like that for?

>The real question is why the Su-57 shot the S-70 down??? Surely not by mistake, especially if they flew together as a wing.
My theory would be that the drone either lost connection to the SU-57 or it lost the ability to fly properly. So it was uncontrollable and the SU-57 had to destroy it. That might also explain why it was there in the first place, maybe the drone been uncontrollable for a while and had away from safe Russian airspace into Ukrainian airspace.