‘An imitation of activity for appearances’ Russia managed to build just seven of 108 airliners planned since the start of the full-scale war
From 2022 to 2024, Russia planned to build 108 airliners. According to a new BBC News Russian investigation, however, it’s managed to produce just seven — apparently using parts stockpiled before its full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Russia’s effort to transition its aviation industry to domestic production appears to be faltering. And this could become a serious issue, given that aviation serves as a vital lifeline for many remote regions, where vast distances make ground transport impossible. Meduza shares key insights from BBC News Russian’s reporting.
Since Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Russia has produced just seven Sukhoi Superjet 100 passenger planes and two prototype aircraft — the Il-96-400M and Il-114 — falling far short of the 108 planes envisioned in the government’s aviation industry development program, according to a BBC News Russian investigation .
Journalists relied on unofficial registries, aggregators, and media reports to estimate production numbers, as Russia’s Federal Air Transport Agency (Rosaviatsiya) concealed its official aircraft registry in June 2024.
The production targets were outlined in a government-approved initiative from June 2022, which aimed to deliver 1,036 planes by 2030, including 142 Sukhoi Superjets. The program set specific milestones: 14 small L-410 aircraft by the end of 2022, 25 planes (including two Superjets) in 2023, and 69 aircraft (20 of them Superjets) by the end of 2024.
However, the plan has been revised at least twice, with deadlines repeatedly pushed back. In August 2024, Kommersant reported that an audit recommended “revising quantitative targets.” Sources in the aviation industry told the publication that a completely new strategy might be developed instead of modifying the existing plan.
The bitter truth is that events in Russia affect your life, too. Help Meduza continue to bring news from Russia to readers around the world by setting up a monthly donation.
A source within Russia’s aviation industry described the original plan as merely a “placeholder” intended to “calm government nerves.” “No one who developed it saw it as a genuine roadmap for production,” the source told BBC News Russian. “Perhaps those at the top believed the plan would be implemented and thousands of planes would be built by 2030, but in reality, it was just an imitation of activity for appearances.”
According to BBC News Russian, the seven Superjets produced since the full-scale invasion were completed using prewar stockpiles of components, while the two prototype aircraft — the Il-96-400M and Il-114 — are being used for testing. The number of L-410 aircraft, a Czech design assembled at the Ural Civil Aviation Plant, remains unclear. The program’s latest version replaced the L-410 with the LMS-192 Osvey, a Russian-Belarusian regional aircraft that, for now, exists only as a computer rendering.
For comparison, Russia produced 11 airliners in 2019, 12 in 2020, and 13 in 2021, including one prototype MC-21. As BBC News Russian noted, this output was “not enough to compete with the world’s largest manufacturers, but sufficient to sustain and develop the domestic aviation industry.”