Internal Documents Reveal Systemic Crisis in Maintenance of Antonov Aircraft in Russia

Russian military aviation has found itself in a deep crisis due to the inability to maintain Antonov-series aircraft.

This is evidenced by internal documents from Aviaremont JSC, which were obtained by Dallas. Specifically, these include reports by the company’s CEO, Albert Bakov, addressed directly to the leadership of the state corporation Rostec.

As a result of international sanctions and the loss of ties with Ukraine, the fleet of transport aircraft is rapidly deteriorating, which has already led to a series of fatal accidents and the deaths of senior Russian aviation commanders.

Currently, Russia operates approximately 368 An-12, An-26, and An-72 aircraft, but 143 of them require urgent repairs. The Russian Ministry of Industry and Trade has officially acknowledged the lack of domestic production of components and assemblies necessary to restore these types of aircraft.

The main maintenance facility for these aircraft, the 308th Aircraft Repair Plant in Ivanovo, is on the verge of bankruptcy.

The plant has completely spent the advance payments for government contracts, has no other sources of income, and is forced to take out loans from Rostec subsidiaries just to pay employees’ salaries.

Aviaremont is headed by Albert Bakov, who has no specialized education or experience in the aviation industry. He is an economist specializing in Japanese studies and the son-in-law of director Nikita Mikhalkov, and his previous management of other defense plants was accompanied by acute financial difficulties for those enterprises.

Internal reports directly point to the complete failure of the program to replace imported components for Antonov aircraft. Russia does not possess the full design documentation and has still been unable to establish serial production of spare parts at its own facilities to replace Ukrainian components.

Recent Antonov aircraft crashes in Russia

Technical deterioration caused the crash of an An-22 aircraft in December 2025 in the Ivanovo region. The aircraft broke apart in mid-air just four months after repair work was completed at Plant No. 308, resulting in the deaths of the entire seven-member crew.

The next major accident occurred on March 31, 2026, over Crimea, where a military transport An-26 crashed. Among the 29 victims was Lieutenant General Alexander Otroshchenko, and the Russian Ministry of Defense cited a technical malfunction without external influence as the preliminary cause of the crash.

A new program to address the spare parts shortage, being developed by the V.M. Myasishchev Experimental Machine-Building Plant, requires approximately $300 million in investment. However, funding for this project is not scheduled to begin until 2029, effectively leaving the aircraft fleet without support for the coming years.

As early as May 2025, Aviaremont’s management predicted that repairs to An-series aircraft would become impossible within 18–24 months. After this period ends, experts estimate that the operation of the entire transport aircraft fleet will cease entirely.