I know the reasons of commonalities you mentioned, but the problem is that the il-276 has (already on paper) poor specs in comparison to aircraft of similar size, mass and engine thrust (.e.g. embraer C-390). Considering the experience with il-112v it is not a good premise.
Beating the specs of other countries aircraft doesn't come in to it, the point is to develop a replacement for the An-12 as quickly and efficiently as possible, having an aircraft with the same internal cross section as the Il-476 is a good thing.
If they want better performance down the track they could put PD-16 engines or PD-18 engines if they want to boost its performance but the point of it is commonality with the Il-476 and ability to make one or the other or both in the same factory at the same time without needing to retool, they can scale production to boost production of one type or the other for domestic demand and for export.
In 5 years or so when the superjet and MS-21 are at full production rate an they start replacing Tu-204/214 etc then the factories making the Tupolevs can start modifying them to replace existing military types that need replacement as mentioned before while at the same time they could make a few prototypes for the Tu-330 as well which as you know is in a heavier payload class to the Il-276 which might be more useful for transporting the Boomerang family of vehicles which might be slightly too heavy for the Il-276s.
The Tu-330 share about 70% commonality of parts with the Tu-204/214 which will also enter military service to replace other obsolete types and could possibly be added as a inflight refuelling tanker for front line aircraft that operates near friendly air bases so aircraft can refuel without needing to land if they still have unused ordinance... operating over the friendly base would take advantage of local air defences to make the tanker safer.
Furthermore while stretching the fuselage of an aircraft is relatively easy and feasible, scaling down one is often not as easy (at least if you want good characteristics).
They normally add sections in front of and behind the wing to enlarge a fuselage... I expect the reverse would work too.
If we consider the plant currently building Il-76(Aviastar on Ulyanovsk) it is is now fully loaded with Il-76, and will later probably be responsible for il-106 and other superheavy aircrafts.
The point is that the new plants for building the Il-276 could also add production capacity for building extra Il-476s as needed, so say the Il-276 is a flop and only Russia wants them... say 250 to replace the An-12 but would also replace the An-32 for hot and high and of course being a jet it could also replace the An-72 as well, then they could make their 250 and then change production to Il-476s to get them out faster and to feed any export demand, which I think will be pretty good but they need to expand their production capacity to fill that need.
There are quite a few countries around the place who need replacements for An-12s who might want Il-276s and if they also want Il-476s then local production might suit them too... say India in Asia and Brazil in South America... and both countries can be a support and maintenance hub for Russian types.
South Africa might want to be the African hub.
If you have to build new equipment, in that case it could be worth to do something new.
Build new factories to make foreign designs you don't currently use... sounds rather risky to me... and what is the payoff... no commonality with anything else in your fleet... do they even have engines and what about all the avionics and equipment you wont be able to import because it will be European.
As far as the Tu-330 due to commonalities with tu204 probably some of the equipment for tu-214 and tu-204 can be reused. Since Kazan is already busy at the same time with tu-214 orders for civilian use, maybe the equipment in Ulyanovsk (Aviastar) for the Tu-204 (and Tu-204SM) could be used as well. So either a new production line there or moving the equipment and the assembly line to VASO (Voronezh) or Aviakor (Samara).
I was thinking the Tu production lines would be better used meeting the needs of civilian airlines first and then they can convert those planes to military use once Super jet and MS-21 production has gotten to the point where they have enough aircraft for the job the extra tupolevs could be converted into military types to allow obsolete types to be retired and replaced with one or two types instead... once it starts converting planes to military it can start making prototypes for the Tu-330 for testing and production.
By then more suitable engines can be used on the military Tupolevs to improve their performance... and by then better engines could be fitted to the Il-276 to improve its performance if needed.
Setting up production of the Tu-330 will absolutely not take more time than production of the il-276, and since at the end the available factories are the same (Aviastar, VASO and Aviakor) having both when they are not yet fully developed project could be counterproductive.
Both types would need prototypes built and tested before serial production can start and I think making both would actually be a good idea but I think the Il-276 could be ready first and being a smaller lighter aircraft it could be made fairly quickly in comparison to the Il-476, and once it has made enough to replace the An-12s that are still in use it could revert to making Il-476s to get them produced faster and once they have enough of them for the Russian military they can start on export models including Il-276 if there is interest.
It seems India wants a light transport with lots of engine power to replace its An-12s and An-32s and an Il-276 would be able to do that job just fine... if only they had stuck with the project and not bailed.
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