Russia has announced that it want to produce 1,000 passenger aircraft by 2030 using locally made parts, state technology company Rostec told Reuters on Wednesday September 28th. The strategy of self-sufficiency in the aviation industry is a departure from the situation before the start of the Ukrainian war, when aircraft purchased from Boeing and Airbus carried 95% of Russian passenger traffic, according to Reuters.
Rostec has announced that it intends to replace imported parts with local ones. “Starting this year, we will not depend on international cooperation with Western countries,” Rostec told Reuters. “Foreign aircraft will leave the fleet. We believe that this process is irreversible and Boeing and Airbus aircraft will never be delivered to Russia.”
Rostec’s optimism contrasts with recent comments by Oleg Vyugin, a former senior Finance Ministry and Central Bank official, who told Reuters in an interview last week that Russia could be in for years of decline in technological development due to sanctions.
We don’t expect sanctions to be eased and we are building our plans based on the existing tough scenario.
Rostec
“The world will move forward, but Russia will only use second-rate technology and spend huge resources to recreate what already exists in the world, but cannot be imported,” Vyugin, a former deputy finance minister and deputy governor of the Bank of Russia, said.
Meanwhile, Rostec announced on September 25th that the country’s air forces will soon receive a new batch of fifth-generation Su-57 aircraft. The company also revealed that it is working to increase production of these fighters, RIA Novosti reported. The report did not specify how many aircraft will be transferred to the Air Force. Since the service has only a small number of fifth-generation aircraft in its inventory, any new aircraft will significantly increase its air power.
Sergey Chemezov, head of Rostec Corporation, visited the Komsomolsk-on-Amur Aircraft Plant (KnAAZ). The plant, named after Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin, is responsible for the production of Su-57 fighter jets. The company is working to increase production of these aircraft under the contract between United Aircraft Corporation (UAC) and the Ministry of Defense; a new batch of fighters will soon be delivered to the troops, the statement said.
According to Business Insider, Russia has tried to counter sanctions by substituting Western imports with those from non-sanctioning countries or seeking options of its own. But success has been limited, analysts at Bruegel, a Brussels-based think tank, said in late March.
“High-tech products are developed using inputs from many countries, but few of them can function without those from the European Union or the United States,” the analysts commented. “As a result, a single economy cannot replicate global network capabilities.”
Russia’s state-owned airline Aeroflot has already begun removing spare parts from operating aircraft due to supply shortages caused by the sanctions, Reuters reported in August.
