Russia cannot build strategic aircraft – details

Strategic bomber Tu-22M3. Photo: mil.in.ua

Russia does not have the capacity to build strategic aircraft. Aviation expert, deputy director of the Ukrainian company for the production of electronic warfare systems (EW) Anatoly Khrapchinsky said this on the air of the FREEDOM TV channel.

He noted that the Russian Federation can produce a certain number of transport aircraft.

“We see this even in reports about the Il-76. But, nevertheless, we see what the consequences are. They even try to buy low-quality bearings somewhere to install them on their aircraft. If we are talking about tactical aviation – these are aircraft of the Su-34, Su-35, Su-30 class, then Russia, at its Sukhoi plant facilities – this is one of the main plants, which is located in Komsomolsk-on-Amur, is capable of producing about 6 aircraft per year,” Khrapchinsky said.

The aviation expert noted that earlier Russia actively announced the transfer of new aircraft to the balance of the Aerospace Forces, but this was about contracts that were signed in 2018-2019.

“If we are talking about strategic aviation, then the situation in the Russian Federation is very problematic, because Russia cannot build strategic aircraft. The technology for producing Tu-22M3 has been lost, the ability to produce some components for Tu-160 aircraft has been lost. The fact that we saw four aircraft was a deep modernization of the old fleet and an attempt to pass it off as the production of new aircraft from the allegedly existing parts that remained from the Soviet Union. Therefore, in principle, if we talk about aircraft production, then Russia has such a potential that it loses more than it produces,” he said.

According to Khrapchinsky, the Russian Federation has a fairly good resource, because it produced a sufficient number of aircraft before the full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

“But, nevertheless, it should be noted that it is precisely these problems with bearings, with components, that if we talk about the avionics of most modern Russian aircraft, then it is literally stuffed with Western components. And without these Western components, most aircraft of the Russian Federation cannot take off. For example: about 30 Su-35s are at the aircraft plant in Komsomolsk-on-Amur, which cannot take off due to the lack of a certain list of components that would help this aircraft carry out combat operations. That is, they cannot sell the aircraft to anyone, or even transfer it to the balance of the air forces,” the expert said.

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Earlier, Khrapchinsky said that problems with the technical condition of aircraft in Russian aviation are increasingly occurring due to the sanctions and the limitations of domestic production.