Russia says it has doubled combat aircraft production

Russia claims it has doubled combat aircraft production since the start of the war in Ukraine, defense heavyweight Rostec chief Sergei Chemezov told President Vladimir Putin at a meeting, according to the Kremlin’s official website.

Chemezov made the claim directly to President Vladimir Putin at a formal meeting, according to the Kremlin’s official website. The doubling assertion sits at the center of Moscow’s wartime industrial narrative: that Western sanctions have failed to stop Russia’s defense factories, that the mobilization of the military-industrial base is working, and that the Aerospace Forces are being resupplied faster than Ukraine and its partners can destroy them. The verified production figures for 2025 challenge all three conclusions.

Russia delivered at least 30 new tactical combat aircraft to its Aerospace Forces in 2025, according to analysis by Ukrainian defense outlet Militarnyi. The breakdown runs as follows: approximately 14 to 15 Su-34M frontline bombers in their modernized configuration; 12 Su-35S multirole fighters delivered across six batches throughout the year; 2 Su-30SM2 multirole aircraft; and approximately 2 Su-57 fifth-generation fighters, though Militarnyi noted that the exact count and operational readiness of those Su-57 deliveries remain in question.

According to NV, Russian production targets for 2025 had called for up to 57 new aircraft across the Su-57, Su-35, Su-34, and Su-30 families. Actual deliveries reached roughly half that goal. The sanctions-driven disruptions to supply chains, tooling, and precision components that Western governments anticipated when they imposed export controls appear to have had measurable effect, even as Russia has partially adapted through domestic substitution and parallel import networks.

NV’s analysts assessed that Russia lost 65 aircraft in the war against Ukraine in 2025 alone. Against 30 confirmed deliveries, that represents a net fleet reduction of 35 aircraft over a single calendar year. New aircraft are replacing losses at a rate below attrition, not above it. Whatever doubling has occurred in the factories, it is not producing enough airframes to keep pace with what Ukraine is shooting down.

Approximately two deliveries in a full calendar year, with readiness caveats attached from Militarnyi, is not the production rate of a flagship program hitting its stride. Russia’s fifth-generation fighter has been plagued by delays and modest output relative to original procurement ambitions throughout its development history, and 2025 did nothing to change that pattern. Two Su-57s against a target of up to 57 total new aircraft of all types is a program that remains, in practical fleet terms, a marginal contributor to Russian airpower despite its outsized role in Moscow’s public messaging about military modernization.

The Su-34M and Su-35S dominate the actual delivery picture. The Su-34M, the modernized variant of Russia’s primary frontline bomber, accounts for roughly half of all 2025 deliveries by Militarnyi’s count. These are the aircraft dropping glide bombs across Ukrainian cities and front-line positions, and sustaining their numbers matters operationally in a way that Su-57 deliveries, at current rates, simply does not. The Su-35S, delivered in six separate batches across the year, fills the air superiority role that Russian tactical aviation depends on for contested airspace operations. Together, the two types account for the overwhelming majority of what Russia actually added to its combat aviation inventory in 2025.

Russia’s aerospace industry has operated under significant Western export controls since 2022, with restrictions targeting the precision manufacturing equipment, specialized alloys, and electronic components that advanced combat aircraft production requires. That output has continued at all under those conditions reflects genuine industrial resilience and adaptation. Parallel import networks, domestic component substitution, and the redirection of civilian industrial capacity toward military production have all contributed to keeping the factories running. But running is not the same as running at the pace Moscow needs, and the gap between the 57-aircraft target and the 30-aircraft result is a sanctions dividend that Western policymakers can point to with some justification.

Chemezov told Putin what Putin needed to hear in a formal Kremlin setting. The production numbers that independent analysts tracked through 2025 suggest the reality on the flight line is considerably less reassuring.