Russia's defence design crisis: A workforce on the edge of extinction

The designers of Russia's most important weapons have long passed away. Their successors do not always match their predecessors in skill and talent, and there are too few of them. This affects the quality and reliability of equipment, and "new" armament programs often reach back to designs from the 1980s.

Mikhail Simonov, Sergey Nepobedimyj, Ivan Mikoyan, Ghenrikh Novozhilov, Rollan Martirosov, Pavel Kamnev, and Alexander Blagonravov. What connects these Russians? They are outstanding designers – creators of the Su-27 aircraft, the Iskander missile, MiG-29 aircraft, Il-76 and Su-34 aircraft, the Kalibr missile system, and BMP infantry fighting vehicles.

All these designs form the foundation of the Russian armed forces. None of them—except for the Su-27—has a ready, relatively refined successor, and their creators died in the last decade or a few years earlier.

The death of outstanding designers is not nationally unique – in the West, weapon creators also die. However, unlike in Russia, they leave behind numerous educated successors and institutional knowledge, allowing decades of experience to be utilised without fear that it will be lost with the death of individuals.

The Kremlin is attempting to solve the problem by announcing grand educational programs, such as the plan presented in 2022 to establish 30 new universities educating engineering staff at a cost of 300 million pounds. Meanwhile, the war and Western sanctions have caused an unprecedented brain drain, commonly associated with the IT sector but not limited to it.

Since 2022, around 700,000 people have left Russia. Demographer Salavat Abylkalikov says these are "people with a very high level of social capital, many young specialists". The authorities in Moscow responded typically: first with a plan to ban emigration and remote work, then with an "amnesty" for those who decide to return. However, there are no eager crowds visible.

The result is already evident. One of the main problems of the Russian industry is its dependence on imported machine tools – especially the most advanced ones used for producing the most precisely made parts, crucial, for example, in the aviation industry.

Russia has partially solved the equipment problem – the production of Russian machine tools increases yearly (9,900 in 2017, 17,000 in 2023). Meanwhile, as analysis published by the Jamestown Foundation shows, the number of employees capable of operating them is decreasing.

Staff shortages impact more than just visible statistics. The extinction of experienced, Soviet-era trained engineering staff translates, among other things, to the quality of weapon designs. Those developed in Russia after the fall of the Soviet Union, in some cases, proved to be underdeveloped and unreliable.

Examples include the Russian Project 677 Lada-class submarines. Although they were supposed to be the future of the Russian fleet, the project turned out so poorly that the prototype unit Saint Petersburg was decided to be scrapped merely two years after being commissioned.

The AK-12, produced for a decade – the "new generation Kalashnikov" – is a mockery of the reliability legend created over the years by Mikhail Kalashnikov (who died in 2013). The war in Ukraine revealed numerous flaws in the new weapon.

The failure of designers at the Izmash plant is even greater because, in the new weapon, they did not eliminate the flaws of previous models but spoiled what was good in them. I

Of course, the crisis does not equally affect all areas of the Russian defence sector. For example, the Russian Strategic Rocket Forces and the hypersonic weapons sector cannot complain about the development pace, but these are exceptions to the rule.

The issue is evidenced by increasingly visible attempts to build "new" weapons, which are, in reality, rehashing old 1980s projects. The T-14 Armata tank is a contemporary realisation of a late Cold War idea.

The new aircraft carrier, whose construction was announced in January 2024 by Admiral Nikolai Yevmenov, Commander-in-Chief of the Russian Navy, is also based on the plans of the Ulyanovsk ship (Project 1143.7), which has been unsuccessfully under construction since 1986.

Even the newest plan announced by the Rostec corporation to build a 5th generation fighter jet refers to the Yak-141 project, whose prototype took to the air in 1987.

While the Americans – sometimes not without problems – are introducing new types of weapons developed according to modern, not Cold War principles (F-35, B-21 aircraft, V-280 helicopter, M10 Booker tank, M30 infantry fighting vehicle), the Russians endlessly refresh equipment whose modernisation potential is already exhausted and see no successors in sight.

As a result, when the Kremlin brags about the "new" Tu-160M strategic bomber, it is boasting not about modern weaponry but upgraded equipment designed in the 1980s.

This is succinctly summarised by a quote cited in a report by the Pulaski Foundation: "'We are dying off,' said one respected designer during private conversation. 'Look at him,' he said as he gestured towards one of his colleagues. 'Now, look at me – we all have white hair. We will be gone soon and there is no one coming behind us to replace us.'"