September 24, 2025

• The InformNapalm community published the “Report on the Diagnostics of the Condition of Gear-Cutting Equipment” dated September 24, 2024.

• Leaked documents revealed the critical state of the Russian aircraft industry due to lack of access to Western technology.
  

In September 2022, the CYBINT group “Decision Center” received a set of internal documents from a number of Russian enterprises and corporations under EU and US sanctions. This data became the basis for systematic monitoring, which allows identifying and blocking supply chains of critical equipment to the aggressor country.

The details are reported by 24 Channel with reference to the international intelligence community InformNapalm . One of these documents was published by the researchers on Wednesday, September 24.

What is known about the critical state of aircraft manufacturing in Russia?

The published document is dated September 24, 2024. This is the “Act of Diagnostics of the Condition of Gear-Cutting Equipment”, compiled at the Russian enterprise OKBM LLC, which cooperates with the aircraft construction concern PJSC Yakovlev.

Until July 2023, this concern was called Irkut. It is part of the Russian Aircraft Corporation, which is responsible for designing the MS-21 and SJ-100 aircraft , which the Kremlin is trying to present as a symbol of “import substitution” and “independence from the West.”

However, internal documents show the opposite: without access to Western technologies, Russian aircraft manufacturing found itself hostage to Soviet scrap metal and faulty “modernized” analogues,
InformNapalm writes.

By the way, after the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, PJSC “Yakovlev” is under sanctions from 27 EU countries, the USA, and a number of other states.

Diagnostic report of the condition of the gear-cutting equipment / Photo InformNapalm

According to the diagnostic report:

• most of the machines are Soviet-made in 1972, which have long since exhausted their service life;
• modern German machine tools (e.g. MHD) have become unavailable due to sanctions;
• alternative purchases in China or the CIS countries did not yield results;
• “modernized” machines from Saratov, Russia, turned out to be faulty or of poor quality.

Reference: gear hobbing machines are critical equipment for the manufacture of gears and gearboxes in aircraft construction, without which the production of key parts for engines and transmissions is impossible.

Some of the equipment was not put into operation due to serious breakdowns immediately after delivery, and the planned dates for putting the machines into operation were postponed to October 2024 – March 2025.

This means inevitable delays in the production of the MC-21 and SJ-100 aircraft, which the Kremlin is trying to showcase as a “latest breakthrough , “
the investigators write.

Russian aviation: latest news

• On September 21, Ukrainian intelligence agents shot down two Russian Be-12 anti-submarine aircraft in occupied Crimea. Defense Express analysts said that the downed aircraft were “irreplaceable” for Russia due to the lack of successful replacement projects and problems in the Russian defense industry.
• Russia has begun using Yak-52 trainer aircraft to intercept Ukrainian long-range drones “in a World War I style,” likely due to insufficient air defense capabilities and problems with combat aircraft.
• In one of the reports from the Russian-Belarusian military exercises “West-2025”, in the background behind the Su-33 moving towards the runway in Severomorsk-1, an inflatable mock-up of a fighter jet was noticed lowered .

https://24tv.ua/vitik-rosiyskih-dokumentiv-rosiyske-aviabuduvannya-kritichnomu_n2921137