>>64387572
Yes and no, they did want the plane, but they've failed. Not because of corruption itself, corruption is just a force of nature there, an act of god, built into the system. Corruption should've just made the project more expensive, but even making it 10x or 20x more expensive should've still resulted in them making the plane. But there's no plane. Not because the money got stolen. But because of the state of modern russia:
- hubris;
- unsubstantiated ambitions;
- lack of modesty with plans;
- lack of any reality checks;
- lack of honesty;
- lack of efficiency;
- general lack of a single vision, soviet-tier "I did my job right, not my problem";
- general issue with culture of manufacturing;
- general culture of lying;
- etc, etc, etc;
So yeah, instead of cloning the old plane with some modern improvements, which should've been easy and straight forward, and concentrating on actual production, setting up servicing for the planes and so on they've spent most of their resources on trying to create a "cool modern ANALOGOVNET" shitbox, with composite and shit. Stumbled and fumbled every step possible. For example, the R&D faggots using foreign composites, while the actual manufacturers being forced to use domestic composites, which SURPRISE-SURPRISE sucked ass and didn't have the necessary characteristics, resulting the plane breaking under basic load. Why do you even need composites for a fuckin' "cheap flying minivan" (that's what an AN-2 is)? Because it's cool, modern and ANALOGOVNET.
Hence you have 10+ years wasted, billions of dollars wasted and no actual planes.
