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by thisislife2·1y ago·view on hn ↗
I agree with you that it certainly hurts the strategic wings (one of the 3 components of the nuclear triad) of the Russian military. But does it change the war in favour of the Ukrainians in any meaningful way? The answer is no because Russian airpower still outguns Ukrainians airpower. Russia still has enough tactical bombers, strategic bombers, fighter jets and drones to launch lethal attacks that Ukraine cannot completely thwart (because of the lack of air defence and its crippled airforce). It also hasn't distracted the Russian military to slow down their offensive.

And the Ukrainians still don't have the ability (or are apprehensive) to launch a meaningful counter offensive, while the Russians keep advancing slowly.

As for the bombers being "irreplaceable" that's the western media fudging with the facts - yes, Russia is no longer manufacturing these particular old but operational strategic bombers any more and hence they cannot be replaced. But Russia has been able to revive production of the TU-160 (and its variants TU-160M, TU-160M2 - the largest operational bomber in the world) and has started manufacturing these new / revised supersonic strategic bombers since 2022 (Full production of Russia's Tu-160 bomber restarted after 30 years - https://newatlas.com/military/russias-tu-160-bomber-restarts... ). It has also developed prototypes of a new stealth bomber, the PAK-DA. So it is ignorant and incorrect to say that Russia doesn't have an industrial base any more to manufacture such kind of bombers. (I will however concede that sanctions are definitely interfering with Russians progress in this domain, and hindering fast production and research effort).

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They appear to have built two Tu-160Ms, over a number of years, at least one of which uses an unfinished frame from the Soviet era. To what extent they can actually build them (vs relying on unused parts from decades ago) is unclear, but at any rate they don’t seem to be able to do it fast enough to meaningfully maintain their stock of strategic bombers.
The plant seems to have successfully upgraded two old models to the M1 or M2 variants and delivered two new bombers (built with old airframes). But yes, it appears that it can currently manufacture only 3 bombers a year. So I don't see how it can deliver 50 bombers by 2030 that the Russians have apparently ordered (though one wonders if Russia really needs 50 bombers to maintain strategic parity when there are so many other delivery systems?). Sanctions have definitely hampered the industry too. But overall, the Russians do seem have to revived their aviation industry base in the last 2 decades or so, which they certainly are treating as a priority. All this may also explain why the Russians are suddenly willing to offer the Indians, the Su-57, with some technology transfer including the full source code of the fighter jet - https://militarywatchmagazine.com/article/russia-offers-indi... - (which is quite unprecedented). If India accepts it, such an order (and partnership with India) would be a major boost for the Russian defence aviation industry and revitalise it.