Russia has a shortage of aircraft, the Kremlin is forced to remove Soviet planes from mothballing – intelligence

Russia is returning old aircraft to service because its modern fleet is shrinking and the Kremlin has no means to fully upgrade it. About said Foreign Intelligence Service.

According to available data, in 2026-2027, the Russians plan to massively commission mothballed Soviet and foreign-made aircraft. Most of them are over 30 years old.

As part of this restoration program, 10 out of 12 planned aircraft have already been returned to service. These are Tu-204/214, Il-96, and An-148. Two more restored Tu-204s are planned to be delivered by 2027, despite the fact that they are "morally and technically" outdated.

At the same time, Russian airlines are forced to mothball foreign aircraft. Rossiya is expanding its fleet of Boeing 747s, which it inherited after Transaero's bankruptcy.

"Aircraft that are more than 20 years old are being returned to flights after years of storage, in part due to a lack of alternative equipment," the foreign intelligence agency noted.

As of October 2025, the fleet of the largest civilian airlines in the Russian Federation included 1135 aircraft, of which 1088 were in operation. Of these, 67% are foreign-made aircraft, the maintenance of which is complicated by sanctions and a shortage of spare parts, the Federal Air Transport Service says.

The crisis in cargo aviation is equally tangible: air cargo turnover fell from 9.2 billion ton-kilometers in 2021 to 1.9 billion in 2024.

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