The percentages do indeed speak for themselves: two thirds of Russian exports are fossil fuels. Without them, Russia would be bankrupt. The economic growth you boast of has been fuelled, in every sense, by oil & gas exports.

And? Oil and gas exports contribute about 4% of the GDP. Bankrupt? lol.

The economy is not only smaller than China’s, but also India’s (at PPP), Japan’s, & Germany’s. If you prefer the IMF estimate to the World Bank one, it’s about the same size as the economy of the UK or France.
Ok? This is news to someone? Doesn’t change the defense budgets of all the nations you mentioned, and Russia’s third largest in the world. When considering the far advanced starting point that Russian defense industry operates at compared to say the Chinese or Indian ones, every dollar goes a farther way.

…………………………………………..

Anyways I am done with this OT.

Yes but then what about the F 35 ? Having a few more PAK FA than F 22 will not make Russian Air Force challenge the USAF. And Russia is still dependent on its fossil fuels and is not going to have the financial resources of China in the near or distant future. With the world moving towards non-fossil fuel Chinese have the advantage with their 90+% of worlds rare earths.

Who said it’s going to challenge the USAF? The point is using the world cripple to describe the Russian military is laughable.At current trends neither are the Chinese, nonsense alarmist rhetoric aside.

Whats wrong with fossil fuels? First of all Russia is not as dependent on fossil fuel export as people make out (percentages speak for themselves) Speaking of financial resources, you should check out Russia’s economic growth rate. The economy as a whole is certainly smaller than China’s, but not the level that it is incapable of producing impressive defense output (which it is, at a much higher quality level than China for the most part). The relevant figures here are defense spending, and Russia’s is huge on the global scale (US exempt). World going away from fossil fuels? News to me, and nonsense for the next however many decades.

China is the most overstated bogeyman I have ever seen. Their military growth is impressive enough that embellishing it with speculative nonsense is just unnecessary.

Some Mi-28N info I have found:

Это, кстати, косвенно подтверждает и небезызвестный boyan оттудова на форумавиа.ру – он грит, что у них сейчас в работе машина зав. 05-03. По моим подсчетам, 05-03 – это 15-й Ми-28Н в этом году и 40-й в целом (с учетом обеих прототипов ОП).
А всего общие уже имеющиеся контракты с МО РФ (с учетом уже сделанных) – на 97 штук к 2015 г. То есть в 2011-2014 гг. “Роствертол” тоже должен по 15 штук в год клепать.

15 Mi-28Ns constructed this year, 40 in total (counting 2 prototypes). Total orders are for 97 by 2015. Another 15 per year from 2011-2014.

Also somewhere around 34 Mi-8s of different types were procured this year, no further info on that.

Finally, useful numbers of a new airframe. Good stuff.

Cheers, TR1

Oh and :
http://www.rian.ru/economy/20100930/280816632.html

Contracts have yet to be signed, but Russia and Ukraine has compiled around 60 orders for the An-124, which is enough to start production.

So 20 new An-124s for RuAF.

-Cheers,
TR1

Did they learn nothing from the last time they did this?

They made a lot of money last time they did it, and China has not actually exported any Flanker rip-offs, unfortunately for the legions cackling over how Russia got screwed over. The technology gain would have been done domestically anyways, no reason to miss potential big profits that actually saved the domestic industry.

200 $ million procurement budget? Dear lord that’s small.

I was under the impression that Russia was footing most of the AN-70 bill as it is. I would like to see the project completed, I think it could have real export potential, its too bad they stagnated for so long, it was ahead of everything else in the 90s, even today its arguably a better aircraft (and a far better value likely) than the A400M, while Hercules is not getting any younger.

Calm down Trident, it looks like An-124 will again be making an appearance int he form of new airframes in the RuAF.:D

How modernized it will be, can only be speculated on now.

Didn’t the Russians ultimately pick the Mi-28 over the Ka-50/52 because it was cheaper?

No. It had much more to do with performance, layout, other factors.

And this is coming from a Ka-50 fanboy.