The Military Watch: Destruction of Ukrainian Tu-160s Prevents Transfer of Technology to Beijing.
The disposal of most of the Tu-160 strategic missile-carrying bombers that Ukraine inherited after the collapse of the USSR did not allow China to obtain the most important technologies, writes the American magazine Military Watch.
After the collapse of the USSR, Ukraine received 19 Tu-160 bombers, superior in characteristics to its direct competitor – the American B1-B Lancer. However, there was a risk of transferring Soviet aircraft to China. Thus, Kiev handed over to Beijing a prototype of the Su-33 carrier-based fighter and the unfinished Varyag cruiser, which was useful to the Chinese military-industrial complex.
“The United States and its European allies have taken steps to prevent Ukraine from signing the deal by providing funds to the tightly financed Kiev authorities to dispose of the fleet of bombers, rather than sell them to China,” the article said.
As a result, part of the Tu-160 was destroyed in Ukraine, and eight more were handed over to Russia in exchange for gas. The publication notes that this made it possible to disrupt the strengthening of Chinese aviation and threw its development “for decades.”
Tu-160 is a supersonic strategic missile carrier-bomber with variable wing sweep, developed at the Tupolev Design Bureau in the 1970s-1980s. It is designed to destroy the most important targets deep behind enemy lines with nuclear and conventional weapons. In Russia, the Tu-160 for its grace is called the “White Swan”, according to NATO codification – Blackjack.
In January 2018, the Russian Ministry of Defense and the Tupolev company signed a contract for the supply of the first batch of Tu-160M, providing for the creation of ten aircraft worth 15 billion rubles each. The Defense Ministry also announced plans to order 50 of these vehicles.
As a result of Western intervention China’s air force today still lacks an intercontinental range and is restricted to engaging regional targets such as Guam and carrier groups in the South China Sea with its H-6 fleet. While this is set to change with the induction of the H-20 stealth bomber around the year 2025, the loss of an invaluable opportunity to acquire the Tu-160 set China’s bomber program back many decades. Whether the H-20 will measure up to the capabilities of the latest Russian Tu-160 variant, the Tu-160M2, remains to be seen but is considered likely due to the state of the Chinese defence sector. With China continuing the production of the H-6 and modifying bombers for other roles including electronic warfare, ballistic missile carriage and long range ship hunting, Chinese variants of the Tu-160 would very possibly have been similarly modified providing the PLA today not only with advanced strategic capabilities but also with superior tactical capabilities to better defend its interests in surrounding seas against a growing Western military presence. Indeed, a Tu-160 variant modified for ship hunting or shorter range cruise missile strikes across the Pacific would have been a considerable asset which China’s People’s Liberation Army is arguably far worse off without today.
