A US Air Force F-16 fighter jet takes off from an airbase in Germany. Photo by Boris Roessler/picture alliance via Getty Images 2025-05-31T12:20:02Z Save Saved Read in app This story is available exclusively to Business Insider subscribers. Become an Insider and start reading now. Have an account? A Russian company said it paid 12 soldiers a combined $195,000 for shooting down an F-16 jet. Fores said it presented the soldiers the cash at a ceremony near the Russia-Ukraine border on Thursday. Kyiv had long coveted the US-made F-16. It received its first of the jets in 2024. A Russian oil company said it had awarded a total of 15 million rubles (around $195,000) to Russian soldiers who it credited with downing the first US-made F-16 fighter jet in Ukraine.In a press release, Fores, a fracking parts manufacturer, said it had presented 12 servicemen with the cash at a ceremony near the Russia-Ukraine border on Thursday."Fores fulfilled its earlier promise and paid 15 million rubles to Russian servicemen for destroying the first F-16 fighter jet in the special operation zone," the company said.The firm announced the bounty system in 2023, promising cash rewards for soldiers who destroyed certain Western-supplied military equipment.The company said it had so far paid out just over 52 million rubles (around $670,000) for the destruction of the F-16 and an unspecified number of Leopard 2 and Abrams tanks.Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy had long coveted the F-16 as he sought to bolster Ukraine's air defenses, and Kyiv received its first delivery of the jet in the summer of 2024. Ukraine's forces have so far lost at least three F-16s in combat, with the General Staff confirming the first loss in August last year.The F-16 has nevertheless seemingly proved a hit over the battlefield.Gen. Christopher G. Cavoli, the US's top general in Europe, told a Senate Armed Services Committee in April that F-16s were flying "every day" in Ukraine and that they had been successful in both air defense and offensive operations."They've defeated a large number of cruise missile threats, and they've delivered an awful lot of offensive attacks as well," he said, adding: "Specifically, bombing attacks in the east."