MOSCOW. Nov 9 (Interfax-AVN) - Russia is not going to develop new strategic bombers before 2015, Yury Koptev, chief of the Defense Industry Department of the Russian Ministry for Industry and Energy, told Interfax-Military News Agency.
"Work on the new-generation long-range military aircraft is unlikely to start before 2015," he said.
According to him, the new strategic aircraft program will provide for researches only until 2015.
"There will be a conceptual research, and perhaps some investigations into the future design of the aircraft," he said.
He added that the industry would try and create a technological backlog in this field, while the existing fleet of long-range aircraft would be modernized.
"The U.S. tries to retain its strategic fleet at the maximum, for which it modernizes the aircraft continuously," he said.
"In Russia this will mean the program of service life extension for the three main strategic aircraft types (the TU-22M3 Backfire long-range bomber, and the TU-95 Bear and TU-160 Blackjack strategic missile aircraft - Interfax-AVN) and their profound modernization, providing for new weapons to be installed," he said.
According to him, very few aircraft have been modernized in Russia so far.
"Work is underway to adjust the aircraft for new weapons. This work should transform into a program of upgrading the existing fleet to the level of aircraft already modernized," he said.