An-72

Internal documents published by the private intelligence firm Dallas indicate that Russia’s state-controlled aircraft repair network has warned Rostec it can no longer reliably sustain a large share of the country’s Antonov transport fleet. In one of the disclosed letters, Aviarmont told senior Rostec officials that as of August 2025, Russia was operating about 368 aircraft from the An family, including the An-12, An-26, and An-72, across the Russian Ministry of Defense, the National Guard, and FSB aviation, and that 143 of them required repairs. The papers point to a problem that goes beyond routine maintenance delays. Aviarmont wrote that “a difficult situation has developed in carrying out major repairs of these aircraft”, according to the leaked correspondence cited by Dallas. The same material says Russia’s Ministry of Industry and Trade formally confirmed there was no domestic production in Russia of the parts, assemblies, and components needed for An-series aircraft, leaving repair contracts exposed to delays that the company says it cannot solve on its own. A separate internal report on AO 308 ARZ, the 308th Aircraft Repair Plant in Ivanovo, gives the clearest picture of how serious the problem has become. That report says the plant is unable to carry out repairs on An-family aircraft because “there has been no import substitution of components for An-type aircraft, “the full set of design documentation is absent”, and “there is no production of spare parts in Russia”. Those three lines, highlighted in the disclosed material, show that the issue is not limited to financing or scheduling. The plant is describing a repair system that no longer has the industrial base, documentation, or replacement parts needed to support aircraft still flying in state service. (dallas-analytics.com image) The Ivanovo plant sits at the center of this problem because it is one of the main facilities handling Antonov-derived military transports. Company materials published by Dallas identify 308 ARZ as a repair enterprise for aircraft including the An-24, An-26, An-30, An-32, and An-72. Another Aviarmont subsidiary, 325 ARZ in Taganrog, is shown as handling work on the An-12 and An-72. Together, those plants form part of the remaining Russian repair chain for aircraft that were designed in Kyiv during the Soviet period and remained in Russian use long after Moscow’s break with Ukraine. (dallas-analytics.com image) The financial data in the leaked material suggests the repair network is struggling to keep operating even before parts shortages are solved. One internal presentation says 308 ARZ is carrying out 11 state defense contracts covering 14 An-family aircraft with a total value of 2.389 billion rubles. It adds that the funds allocated for those contracts have already been fully spent. Another table in the same material estimates a total additional financing requirement of 4.195 billion rubles for the plant, including the cost of completing the contracts and keeping the enterprise running. In practical terms, Aviarmont is telling Rostec that the factory needs both parts and cash, and that it is short of both. (dallas-analytics.com image) The wider corporate picture is no better. A company slide included in the Dallas publication says Aviarmont oversees 15 aircraft repair plants and that part of the group is already in a difficult financial position. The same slide says Aviarmont posted a consolidated loss of 4.7 billion rubles in 2024, and that its subsidiaries had been entered into Rostec’s register of troubled assets. That matters because the An repair problem is not isolated inside one workshop in Ivanovo. It is unfolding inside a repair holding that is already under financial pressure and is expected to support aircraft used by multiple Russian state operators. Russian An-72. (Photo by Borovik Ruslan) The aircraft at the center of this case are not niche platforms. The An-12 is a four-engine turboprop transport used for cargo and military airlift. The An-26 is a twin-engine transport widely used for logistics and personnel movement, while the An-72 is a short takeoff transport built for operations from austere airfields. Russia still relies on all three types because they fill basic transport roles that newer programs have not cleanly replaced. That makes the internal warning more serious than a narrow factory dispute. It concerns aircraft that remain part of daily state aviation activity. Russian An-12. (Photo by Borovik Ruslan) The disclosed documents also underline why the repair problem has become so hard to reverse. Russia lost access to Ukrainian design support, spare parts, and production links after relations between the two countries collapsed in 2014. The leaked Aviarmont assessments show that more than a decade later, those gaps still have not been closed for Antonov-designed aircraft. One internal document cited by Dallas says that unless urgent measures were taken, repairs of An-type aircraft could become impossible within 18 to 24 months. That warning reads less like a negotiating tactic and more like an admission that the repair chain is reaching its limit. What makes the Dallas publication especially important is that it ties together fleet data, plant-level shortfalls, and official admissions from within the Russian system itself. The figure of 368 aircraft in service and 143 needing repairs offers a rare look at the size of the problem. The Ivanovo plant’s own assessment explains why the backlog exists. The financing tables show that even the available repair work is running into a wall. Taken together, the documents describe a fleet that Russia still depends on, a repair network that is burning through money, and an industrial base that still cannot replace critical Ukrainian-linked inputs.

An-72

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