Al-21F-3 was widely exported, just check all Su-22M-4 and Su-24MK operators.
Talk about how every bit of Soviet design was copied and/or inspired by something western has been repeated to death until it became a sort of universal truth. In my books authors swear on Klimov RD-33 being heavily inspired by Turbo-Union RB.199 and that N019EA radar is a direct copy of Hornet’s APG-65 and similar nonsense – funny enough at the time of the book release there hardly was more than a dozen of pics of the new MiG-29 available but yes, the western authors knew these fine details about the construction of the engines and radar already… 😀 Nothing but pathetic claims, if you ask me..
I think its a very safe bet that lots of espionage was carried out during the cold war, if the soviets needed to steal nuclear secrets to futher thier nuclear arms programs then why not the same for jet engines and other aerospace related programs. I think you’re just going to have to live with it that alot of Soviet/Russian stuff is infact the result of copying and borrowing ideas and solutions found in other countries, don’t worry though they all do it.
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