Amid the Collapse of Its Aviation Industry,  russia Advertises to China a Non-Existent Aircraft Engine

first deputy prime minister of the rf manturov has announced readiness to supply China with a “promising” PD-26 aircraft engine for a long-range wide-body aircraft being developed in Beijing. At the same time, the engine itself exists only on paper.

Please, be reminded that China gave up a joint project with moscow to create the CR929 airliner in 2023. The reason was the inability to replace key American and European systems, as well as the sanctions toxicity of the russian partner.

The kremlin’s proposal came amid the failure of the program to revive the aviation industry, launched after the start of the full-scale war against Ukraine. Of the 15 passenger aircraft that were planned to be transferred to airlines in 2025, manufacturers managed to hand over only one. In 2022–2025, the russian civil aviation fleet was replenished with only 13 new aircraft instead of the planned 82 – twelve “Superjets” and one Tu-214, which is used to transport manturov himself. An additional blow was the discovery of design defects in 14 Sukhoi Superjet 100 aircraft  manufactured in 2016.

russia has neither the production base, nor the technology, nor the personnel to revive the industry. Creating them from scratch is practically impossible.