Russia's Rostec To Co-Develop 5th-Gen Fighter With UAE

[Ryan Ruck]

Russia's Rostec To Co-Develop 5th-Gen Fighter With UAE

February 20, 2017

Russia defense heavyweight Rostec will partner with the UAE Ministry of Defence to co-develop a fifth-generation light combat fighter, company CEO Sergey Chemezov said at IDEX in Abu Dhabi Monday.

Development, which is based upon its MiG-29 twin-engine fighter aircraft, will kick off in 2018, and will take an estimated seven to eight years, Chemezov said during a media briefing with journalists. He elaborated in an exclusive one-on-one interview with Defense News.

“That’s not fast, because it takes quite a long period of time to develop,” he said speaking through a translator. “We anticipate local production here in the Arab Emirates, for the needs of Emirates. And of course [we expect development to support the needs of] the neighboring countries."

Details about how the partnership would be structured have not been finalized, though Chemezov said it could potentially function as a joint venture between the company and UAE or UAE's domestic suppliers.

The announcement comes soon after confirmation by the company that it would support development of India’s fifth-generation advanced medium combat aircraft. Though Chemezov wouldn’t comment on deals still under negotiations, the company is expected to sign a contract for Su-35 aircraft for Indonesia any day. Egypt is another country that reportedly is in talks with Rostec for fighters – MiG-29 aircraft specifically. The two companies signed a $3.5 billion arms package in 2014 covering aircraft, missiles, and coastal defenses.

Russia stands firmly in second place on the defense export market, behind only the U.S., with annual turnovers in excess of $14.5 billion. About 70 percent of Russia’s defense industrial base is under the Rostec umbrella. Defense makes up 70 percent of the company’s total revenue, with commercial making up the remainder. Looking ahead, the company hopes to grow the latter to land at a roughly 50/50 breakdown.

“We don’t own the whole of the defense industry. Rostec is incapable to cover it all,” Chemezov said when asked whether there was room for other players in the domestic industrial base.

He noted confidence in Russia’s ability to overtake the U.S. in certain markets, calling its own offerings “highly competitive in price and quality.” He also pointed to the potential for more sales to Iran for defensive weapons, even now that the $1 billion deal to deliver the S-300 surface-to-air missile defense system is complete.

“I’m sure you’re aware of the sanctions [that] forbid the supply of offensive weapons” to Iran, Chemezov said during the briefing. But any potential buy for defensive arms “we’ll be ready to review.”

When asked whether he expects more cooperation between the U.S. and Russia under the Trump administration, particularly in defense, Chemezov expressed cautious optimism – pointing to President Donald Trump’s business savvy and stating that ‘business reason would prevail.”

“President Trump represents big business, and business means economic interests; and economic interests will always prevail over political,” he told Defense News. “By the end of the day this will positively impact the political relations between the two countries. I hope our relations between Russia and U.S. will improve. And this will naturally impact the global political climate.”

Enhanced cooperation could extend to defense development, Chemezov added, specifically pointing to Boeing and Airbus, which are dependent upon Rostec for the titanium used in manufacturing of aircraft.

“Why not? We’ve been cooperating and still cooperating with Boeing. Though to be quite candid, we are mostly providing and manufacturing spare parts for civilian aircraft. But the alloys we’ve jointly created...will be used for military purposes too.”

As for President Donald Trump’s own support of cooperation with the Russian defense industry, “I don’t know how friendly he is – he hasn’t come to Russia yet,” Chemezov said.

[Ryan Ruck]

Russia Sells Lethal Fighter Jets to the United Arab Emirates

The two countries also plan to work together on a new warplane

February 23, 2017

The United Arab Emirates has agreed to purchase a batch of advanced Sukhoi Su-35 Flanker-E fighters from Russia. As of 2017, the Flanker-E is the most capable operational Russian combat aircraft.

The jets would be a major addition to the UAE’s already formidable fleet of American-made Lockheed Martin F-16E/F Block 60 Fighting Falcons. But troubling for the United States, the deal is an indication that the UAE — a long-time U.S. ally — is drifting into Moscow’s orbit.

“We signed an agreement of intent for the purchase of the Su-35,” Rostec chief Sergei Chemezov told the Moscow-based TASS news agency earlier in February 2017.

Chemezov did not offer any details about how many Su-35s the UAE has ordered or when Sukhoi would begin delivering the aircraft. The two countries also recently signed an agreement to co-develop a new fifth-generation fighter.

The Su-35 is a lethal fighter in its own right. As an air-superiority fighter, its major advantages are a combination of high altitude capability and blistering speed, which allows the fighter to impart the maximum possible amount of launch energy to its arsenal of long-range air-to-air missiles.

The aircraft would be launching its weapons from high supersonic speeds around Mach 1.5 at altitudes greater than 45,000 feet. This means the missiles could reach with their targets faster, giving opponents less time to maneuver or respond in kind.

On top of that, the Flanker-E builds on an existing, potent airframe, which in many respects already exceeded the aerodynamic performance of similarly sized aircraft, such as the Boeing F-15 Eagle. The Su-35 adds a lighter structure, three-dimensional thrust vectoring, advanced avionics and a powerful jamming capability to a proven design.

“Large powerful engines, the ability to supercruise for a long time and very good avionics make this a tough platform on paper,” one highly experienced F-22 stealth fighter pilot told me some time ago. “It’s considered a fourth gen plus-plus, as in it has more inherent capability on the aircraft.”

“It possesses a passive [electronically-scanned array and it] has a big off boresight capability and a very good jamming suite.”

In addition to its fast-scanning radar, ability to shoot missiles in a multitude of directions and defensive countermeasures, the Flanker-E carries a long-range infrared search and track capability that could pose a problem for Western fighters. “It also has non-EM [electro-magnetic] sensors to help it detect other aircraft, which could be useful in long-range detection,” a Super Hornet pilot told me.

Overall, the Su-35 is an extremely formidable machine — and the Russians are starting to have success with selling it abroad. The Chinese have already bought 24 examples, while Indonesia and Brazil are apparently interested in purchasing some number of aircraft, too.

The UAE’s purchase could point to more Middle East sales in the future. And a locally-developed — at least in part — stealthy fifth-generation jet could present a more practical alternative to Western offerings like F-35.

This article originally appeared The National Interest.