Sukhoi bureau designed a two-seat armored ground-attack aircraft, the Sukhoi Su-6, considered in some terms to be superior to its competitor, the Ilyushin Il-2. The government however later chose the Il-2 over the Su-6, but rewarded Sukhoi a Stalin Prize of the 1st Level for its development in 1943. Sukhoi and this team later focused on development of variants of the Su-2, the prototype cannon-armed Sukhoi Su-1 (Su-3) fighter, as well as the Sukhoi Su-8, which to serve as a long-range ground-attack aircraft for the Soviet Air Forces, but was later discarded as the Soviet Union was winning the Eastern Front.
Sukhoi Su-30MKI demonstrator and Su-30 program, being more advanced than the Su-30MK and the Chinese Su-30MKK/MK2. Russia's Defence Ministry was impressed with the type's performance envelope and ordered 30 Su-30SMs, a localised Su-30MKI, for the Russian Air Force. It features state of the art avionics developed by Russia, India and Israel for display, navigation, targeting and electronic warfare; France and South Africa provided other avionics. After two years of evaluation and negotiations, on 30 November 1996, India signed a US$1.462 billion deal with Sukhoi for 50 Russian-produced Su-30MKIs in five batches. The first batch were eight Su-30MKs, the basic version of Su-30.