Putin would have no chance against the West
Thirty-three months into Russia’s wider war on Ukraine, escalating foreign sanctions on Russian industry are finally having a noticeable impact on the Kremlin’s modernisation efforts. Russian plane-maker United Aircraft Corporation is struggling to source critical foreign-made components for the Russian air force’s sole stealth fighter type, the Sukhoi Su-57 – aka the “Felon” in Nato’s reporting system.
Struggling, but not completely failing. The ways by which UAC obtains the components speak to Russia’s enduring strength as the wider war grinds on. But they also hint at unresolved flaws in Russian weapons procurement – flaws Russia’s opponents could still exploit to further squeeze Moscow’s armed forces.
The sanctioned components – including microchips and circuit boards – are part of the MPPU-50, a German-made device for calibrating the twin-engined, supersonic Su-57’s radar. Germany has barred Russia from directly importing the device. This has forced the Russians to find workarounds.
They’re succeeding, according to documents obtained by Frontelligence Insight, a Ukrainian analysis group. “These parts can be easily purchased online and delivered to Russia through third countries,” Frontelligence explained. The sanctioned parts can be found in various products made in Germany, the United States, Japan, India and China, the group found.
The Americans are apparently aware of the problem. On October 30, the US government imposed fresh sanctions on 400 entities, including some in China and India. The goal is “to disrupt sanctions evasion and target entities in multiple third countries,” the US State Department explained.
It’s not a perfect solution. The parts for the MPPU-50 are in too many other products made in too many other countries – including some with no clear military use. “Our team assesses that nearly all these components are used in civilian and dual-use electronics, making it extremely difficult, if not impossible, to prevent Russia from acquiring them.”
But the sheer effort Russian managers must put into sourcing the microchips and circuit boards has the effect of slowing production of the Felon and raising the per-jet price. In 2019, the Kremlin signed a contract for the first 76 combat-ready Su-57s. The price, it seems, is around $50 million per copy.
But where US airframer Lockheed Martin churns out more than 150 F-35 Lightning stealth fighters a year for customers all over the world, UAC has struggled to produce more than a dozen Su-57s for the Russian air force. The firm delivered the first 10 Su-57s in 2022 and 11 in 2023. So far this year, UAC has handed over just a few additional planes.
In the meantime, the Russian air force has lost two Su-57s – one of 10 test models plus a production-standard jet – to accidents. And a Ukrainian drone strike on Russia’s Akhtubinsk State Flight Test Centre in southern Russia this summer destroyed at least one additional Su-57 on the ground.
It’s possible that, nearly 15 years after the Su-57’s first flight, there are slightly more than 30 of the jets in service, a third of them test models. That’s not a lot of Su-57s, given that the Felon is Russia’s only in-service fifth generation jet. Lockheed has now delivered more than 1,000 F-35 fifth-generation stealth fighters to the US and its allies, and there are also 180+ older but even more powerful F-22 Raptors in the US Air Force.
Putin would be most unwise to take on the wider West beyond Ukraine: he would be all but certain to lose the air war, and experience from Iraq and Libya suggests that once you have lost the skies to Western air power your ground army will not survive for long.
All that to one side, it’s clear that foreign sanctions targeting UAC and similar Russian arms makers don’t work perfectly. But they do work well enough to at least slow the Russian air force’s modernisation. Perhaps more importantly for opponents of Russian aggression, there’s no evidence UAC has been able to “on-shore” production of the MPPU-50 by setting up local production. “The reality is that modern weapons production in Russia is nearly impossible without Western components,” Frontelligence Insight noted.
Additional sanctions may fail to entirely halt UAC’s acquisition of critical chips and boards, but they could further throttle it – and, by extension, erect even more obstacles to efficient production of the Su-57.
That’s bad news for UAC, the Russian air force and Russia’s air campaign in Ukraine. If there’s any reason for optimism in Moscow, it’s that US President-elect Donald Trump, who takes office in January, has railed against US support for Ukraine – and could end many of the most damaging sanctions with the stroke of a pen.