Russia unable to build strategic bombers - Defense Express

This was stated during a broadcast on Espreso by military expert and director of development at the media and consulting company Defense Express, Valerii Riabykh.

“The Russians have lost the ability to manufacture strategic bombers. It’s no secret that for the production of heavy bombers they use airframes that were made back in the Soviet Union. For their equipment, they only partially use some new components. And even that equipment was made possible thanks to modern Western electronics. 

Now, access to such components has been cut off since the start of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine. For other parts of these aircraft, they’ve been cannibalizing other bombers, including those once transferred by Ukraine. The remaining parts that still have some service life are used by the Russians to assemble ‘new’ aircraft,” Riabykh explained.

The expert noted that even in cooperation with Western countries, Russia was never able to develop a new civilian aircraft, so there can be no talk of full-fledged production of strategic bombers.

“Russia won’t be able to start producing strategic bombers from scratch. They can’t even build the civilian aircraft they’ve been talking about for years — and that’s despite cooperation with Western countries,” he added.

• On June 1, 2025, the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) conducted a major operation called Pavuty­na (“Spiderweb”) aimed at destroying Russian bomber aviation.
• The head of the SBU, Lieutenant General Vasyl Maliuk, revealed details of this historic special operation, during which more than 40 Russian military aircraft were hit.
• Aviation expert and analyst Kostyantyn Kryvolap noted that Ukraine is achieving significant success and demonstrating an entirely new level of warfare. Operation Pavuty­na even has a geopolitical impact.
• Military expert and former SBU officer (2004–2015) Ivan Stupak pointed out that Pavuty­na became one of the most classified operations in the Security Service of Ukraine — even within the agency, only a few knew the details.