^Pretty big news. I am not surprised. China is greedy. They want to do it all themselves. You can tell even by the name that they wanted as little of it Russian as possible.
I don't think that is fair.
It was known from the start that China was going to be a major buyer of the product and the Russians not so much and in that context that article basically lays out that the Russians are worried about western content that might continue right up to the 5 to 7 years time period when they are ready to produce the plane at which time the western so called partners could be forced by their governments to not supply their contributions to the design which might make the whole project non viable.
It also suggests the Chinese are aware of that but are currently learning a lot from Russian and western engineers on building modern civil airliners so they don't care if the whole thing goes tits up... which suggests they will either spend the money and fill in the gaps created by the western companies leaving the project either with Chinese or Russian alternatives, or they will accept that the whole aircraft design is kaput and start a new all Chinese model with the experience they have accumulated... possibly with Russian assistance because they know they can rely on Russia.
This suggests that while the Chinese want the aircraft, they also want the skills and capacity to make their own aircraft and are prepared to spend money to gain those skills and experience.
Quite reasonable and certainly something that Russia does as well... they were behind in thermals and they spent money and worked at it and now they make good thermals too.
What I think the Russians should do is scale down their involvement in the new plane and focus on the PD-35 engines and the Il-96M improvements and use that for their own market. When the western companies abandon the Chinese plane then Russian companies can offer to fill the gaps again, but it will of course essentially be a Chinese plane with Russian cooperation to get it flying again.
China gets its experience and its planes, western companies lose more income, and Russia gets more work... you could probably offer to sell engines to them in replacement for the western engines they want to use... when those western engines are no longer available.
Only cooperate with China when they want to. Otherwise do not seek them out.
There are lots of areas for Russia and China to cooperate and work together on, but this plane seems to be more for China than for Russia, so I think continuing to work on the plane makes some sense but it is a Chinese aircraft with Russian bits, which is fine... the vast majority would be going to the Chinese market.
Russia can get some work and experience and produce some parts and eventually replacement parts for those denied by the western companies with they are forced to quit.
Russia would be better off perfecting the Il-96M with new engines and avionics and systems... it is a long range aircraft so having a tiny crew doesn't really make much sense to me... having a few extra crewmen means you can have people who can speak languages in the cockpit which can be useful too.
Have read that aircraft with larger crews often have advantages at airports because the extra bodies means they can get through checklists faster and make takeoff positions aircraft with only two crew might miss.
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