For years, the MiG-25 Foxbat terrified the West. Flying higher and faster than almost anything in the American arsenal, the mysterious Soviet interceptor seemed capable of reshaping the balance of air power during the Cold War. Israeli pilots couldn’t catch it, missiles struggled to reach it, and intelligence agencies knew almost nothing about its true capabilities. Then, in 1976, Soviet pilot Viktor Belenko made a decision that stunned the world: he defected to Japan aboard a MiG-25, delivering one of the USSR’s most closely guarded secrets directly into American hands. What U.S. engineers discovered after dismantling the aircraft was shocking. The Foxbat was indeed one of the fastest aircraft ever built, but many of the assumptions surrounding its capabilities turned out to be wrong. This is the story of the MiG-25, Viktor Belenko’s daring escape, the Cold War intelligence coup that fo

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