Su-57
Silk Road – The National Interest magazine published an article by defense and national security specialist Harrison Cass, in which he discussed the Russian aviation industry’s deep crisis, rendering it unable to efficiently produce modern aircraft despite its engineering superiority.
The article specifically compares the Su-57 stealth fighter, Russia’s first fifth-generation aircraft, with its American counterpart, the F-22.
The writer believes that the Russian fighter reveals that the problem lies not with creative engineering minds, but rather with the outdated manufacturing infrastructure that makes Russian production extremely slow compared to the United States and China.
He points out that the collapse of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s deprived factories of funding, forcing the state to merge them into large conglomerates such as the United Aircraft Corporation. This resulted in a complex bureaucracy and a decline in human resources after training programs were halted and the older generation of engineers and technicians retired.
According to the article, Russia relies on foreign components, particularly electronics, avionics, and specialized materials, to develop its aircraft.
Kass attributes Russia’s deprivation of these vital technologies and the disruption of supply chains, financing, and international partnerships to Western sanctions imposed after its annexation of Crimea in 2014 and subsequent full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
However, he notes that even in the absence of sanctions, Russia remains behind in modern manufacturing technologies, lacking automated assembly lines, robotics, and additive manufacturing like those found in American companies like Boeing and Lockheed Martin.
In this case, the article claims that the Russian production process still relies on slow manual labor, adding that the end result is Moscow’s inability to convert prototypes into large-scale production despite its success in designing advanced aircraft like the Su-57.
The author concludes that the “deteriorating” state of the Russian economy and the Ukraine war, which drains funds, resources, and manpower, do not help matters.
He concludes by saying that although Russia spends generously on defense relative to its GDP, its economy is much smaller than that of the United States or China, which limits its ability to expand its aircraft production.
Source: The National Interest
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