December 18, 2024

Where Are All the Planes?


Where Are All the Planes?
Sukhoi Superjet 100 flying over Italy. SuperJet International, Wikimedia Commons.

Obyedinyonnaya Aviastroitelnaya Korporatsiya (United Aircraft Corporation), a Russian aerospace and defense corporation with a majority stake held by the Russian government, planned to produce 108 airliners after the start of the Russian War in Ukraine. According to the BBC Russian Service, in the ensuing two years, only seven Superjet 100 aircraft and two experimental Il-96-400M and Il-114 planes have been produced.

After Russia invaded Ukraine, Western countries imposed stringent sanctions on the Russian aviation industry. For instance, the import of aircraft and spare parts for aircraft are banned. In response, on June 27, 2022, the Russian government approved a program to develop the air transport industry through 2030.

The program set ambitious targets: 14 aircraft by the end of 2022, 25 in 2023, and 69 by the end of 2024. By 2030, the plan aimed to deliver 1,032 passenger planes. However, the program faltered almost immediately, and delivery deadlines have already been postponed twice.

A source in the aviation industry told the BBC Russian Service that the state program was “an imitation of activity” and intended primarily to “calm government nerves.”

The construction of new Sukhoi SuperJet 100 aircraft has been slowed by dependence on foreign components. Production stopped after sanctions cut off access to many of these parts. A stockpile of components had been reserved for production, but they were repurposed to maintain the airworthiness of existing planes. Efforts are underway to replace foreign components with domestic versions or to reorganize the supply chain to acquire foreign parts indirectly.

Similar challenges face the production of MS-21 aircraft. By 2025, seven engines are expected to be produced for this aircraft, enough to equip three MS-21s. Yet the updated aviation development program calls for nine MS-21s to be built by 2025.

In addition to new SSJ and MS-21 airliners, which were designed after the Soviet Union’s collapse, the program includes projects that originated during the Soviet era: the Il-96-300 and Tu-214. While these models are considered outdated both technologically and materially, they remain in the plan because of limited alternatives.

Even these older aircraft rely on foreign components that must be replaced through import substitution, the BBC Russian Service reported.

You Might Also Like

Ghost of Economy Future
  • December 15, 2024

Ghost of Economy Future

Russian analysts give their forecasts for what the economy might look like in early 2025.
Like this post? Get a weekly email digest + member-only deals

Some of Our Books

White Magic

White Magic

The thirteen tales in this volume – all written by Russian émigrés, writers who fled their native country in the early twentieth century – contain a fair dose of magic and mysticism, of terror and the supernatural. There are Petersburg revenants, grief-stricken avengers, Lithuanian vampires, flying skeletons, murders and duels, and even a ghostly Edgar Allen Poe.
93 Untranslatable Russian Words

93 Untranslatable Russian Words

Every language has concepts, ideas, words and idioms that are nearly impossible to translate into another language. This book looks at nearly 100 such Russian words and offers paths to their understanding and translation by way of examples from literature and everyday life. Difficult to translate words and concepts are introduced with dictionary definitions, then elucidated with citations from literature, speech and prose, helping the student of Russian comprehend the word/concept in context.
The Pet Hawk of the House of Abbas

The Pet Hawk of the House of Abbas

This exciting new trilogy by a Russian author – who has been compared to Orhan Pamuk and Umberto Eco – vividly recreates a lost world, yet its passions and characters are entirely relevant to the present day. Full of mystery, memorable characters, and non-stop adventure, The Pet Hawk of the House of Abbas is a must read for lovers of historical fiction and international thrillers.  
Moscow and Muscovites

Moscow and Muscovites

Vladimir Gilyarovsky's classic portrait of the Russian capital is one of Russians’ most beloved books. Yet it has never before been translated into English. Until now! It is a spectactular verbal pastiche: conversation, from gutter gibberish to the drawing room; oratory, from illiterates to aristocrats; prose, from boilerplate to Tolstoy; poetry, from earthy humor to Pushkin. 
Turgenev Bilingual

Turgenev Bilingual

A sampling of Ivan Turgenev's masterful short stories, plays, novellas and novels. Bilingual, with English and accented Russian texts running side by side on adjoining pages.
The Frogs Who Begged for a Tsar (bilingual)

The Frogs Who Begged for a Tsar (bilingual)

The fables of Ivan Krylov are rich fonts of Russian cultural wisdom and experience – reading and understanding them is vital to grasping the Russian worldview. This new edition of 62 of Krylov’s tales presents them side-by-side in English and Russian. The wonderfully lyrical translations by Lydia Razran Stone are accompanied by original, whimsical color illustrations by Katya Korobkina.
Tolstoy Bilingual

Tolstoy Bilingual

This compact, yet surprisingly broad look at the life and work of Tolstoy spans from one of his earliest stories to one of his last, looking at works that made him famous and others that made him notorious. 
The Moscow Eccentric

The Moscow Eccentric

Advance reviewers are calling this new translation "a coup" and "a remarkable achievement." This rediscovered gem of a novel by one of Russia's finest writers explores some of the thorniest issues of the early twentieth century.
A Taste of Chekhov

A Taste of Chekhov

This compact volume is an introduction to the works of Chekhov the master storyteller, via nine stories spanning the last twenty years of his life.
Bears in the Caviar

Bears in the Caviar

Bears in the Caviar is a hilarious and insightful memoir by a diplomat who was “present at the creation” of US-Soviet relations. Charles Thayer headed off to Russia in 1933, calculating that if he could just learn Russian and be on the spot when the US and USSR established relations, he could make himself indispensable and start a career in the foreign service. Remarkably, he pulled it of.

About Us

Russian Life is a publication of a 30-year-young, award-winning publishing house that creates a bimonthly magazine, books, maps, and other products for Russophiles the world over.

Latest Posts

Our Contacts

Russian Life
73 Main Street, Suite 402
Montpelier VT 05602

802-223-4955