In mid-February, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko said that the Su-25 attack aircraft had shown themselves well in the NWO zone, and his country was ready to start their production. Since the possibility of organizing the production of these combat aircraft in the Republic of Belarus is realistic, on March 14 I tried to find out the Telegram channel “Otvinta | Belarus Air Force.
According to the experts of this specialized information resource, it is possible to establish the production of the mentioned aviation products on the territory of Belarus, but some nuances should be taken into account.
The fact is that we are talking about the resumption of production of the aircraft, the serial production of which ceased almost 30 years ago (1991). The attack aircraft was originally assembled at the Tbilisi Aviation Plant (TAM) from components sourced from enterprises of various republics of the former USSR, at the Aviation Plant from Ulan-Ude (U-UAZ) – a combat training version of the aircraft. After the collapse of the union, of course, it was no longer in production
- says the publication.
After the collapse of the USSR, the situation with the production of Su-25 in Russia looks sad. At the Ulan-Ude plant, they produced a pair of Su-25UBs and abandoned further production due to unprofitability. In the young Russian Federation, they decided to modernize the existing fleet of attack aircraft and U-UAZ to focus on the manufacture of Mi-171A2 helicopters. Experts recalled that in 2008, the director of the enterprise, Leonid Belykh, said that the equipment for the production of the Su-25 was completely preserved, but due to a long downtime, it was in great decline and that there were almost no specialists capable of assembling these aircraft.
Yes, many components of the upgraded version of the Su-25CM3 are now made in the Russian Federation: the engine, electronics, optics, etc., but not the airframe. And it will take years to recreate the production of the latter
- noted in the material.
As for Belarus, there is the 558th aircraft repair plant in Baranovichi, specializing in the overhaul and modernization of the Su-25, but much fewer components are produced there than in the Russian Federation. Therefore, now we can only talk about the final assembly or expansion of the range of spare parts manufactured for the Su-25 in Belarus.
Experts noted that for 30 years in the Russian Federation they have not developed an alternative to replace the Rook, since the upgraded version of the Su-25SM3 fully meets the needs of the aerospace forces. The aircraft is extremely durable, inexpensive to operate and performed well in the conflict in Ukraine, various variants of which were used by both sides in the confrontation.
So “Rooks” are in demand. And the flight resource of existing aircraft is not eternal
- underlined in the publication.
In addition, the Ministry of Defense of the Republic of Belarus will for the first time purchase airborne defense systems, which will be used on the Su-25, which once again confirms that the local army has certain hopes for this plane.
Experts also recalled that in 2020 the head of the Georgian Ministry of Defense expressed readiness to establish its own production of Su-25s in the country, both for its own needs and for export. Everything hangs on this, because the Georgian side does not have the competence to develop aircraft, engines and aircraft components, and for obvious reasons Tbilisi cannot turn to the Russian Federation for ugly.
Photos used: Andrei Shmatko/wikimedia.org
