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 UAC obtains the components speak to Russia’s enduring strength as the wider war grinds. But they also hint at unresolved flaws in Russian weapons procurement – flaws Russia’s opponents could exploit to squeeze Moscow’s armed forces further.
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, forcing the Russians to find workarounds.
According to documents obtained by Frontelligence Insight, a Ukrainian analysis group, they’re succeeding. “These parts can be easily purchased online and delivered to Russia through third countries,” Intelligence explained. The group found the sanctioned parts in various products made in Germany, the United States, Japan, India and China.
The Americans are 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 different countries – including some with no apparent 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 slows the Felon’s production and raises the per-jet price. 2019 the Kremlin signed a contract for the first 76 combat-ready Su-57s. The cost, it seems, is around $50 million per copy.
But while US airframer Lockheed Martin produces more than 150 F-35 Lightning stealth fighters a year for customers worldwide, 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 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 jet. Lockheed has now delivered more than 1,000 F-35 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 at least they work well enough to 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,” Intelligence Insight noted.
Additional sanctions may not 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 terrible news for UAC, the Russian air force and Russia’s air campaign in Ukraine. Suppose there’s any reason for optimism in Moscow. In that case, 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.
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