If they aren't going to make money, they won't do it. You have to give a little to get alot. France might have lost out on several deals, but at least we didn't lose money. Russia practically gives their stuff away. Russian producers are screaming to raise prices because there is no profit in what they are doing. It is part of the problem of their bankrupt defence industry.
Buddy, Russia has to give stuff away till today because they've not made anything new in the last 20 years since Soviet collapse. Living off Soviet designs that were made 25+ years back with minor upgrades and not even have AESA offered to international customers, there's not much they can afford to raise prices as compared to European and American vendors. The entire reason for Russia retaining second spot on the planet after USA is arms sales is because of its low-price-rugged-equipment deal that many middle-rich countries prefer over the through-the-roof prices of European and American suppliers who overcharge for everything.
The reason for Russian arms bankruptcy at this moment is because it is not able to create a domestic demand strong enough to receive enough orders. For example, if VVS (Russian Air Force) and RN (their Navy)
were as strong as European countries economically, they would have:
- ordered at least 380-410 Su-35BMs for replacing their old Su-27s, MiG-31s and Su-30s
- ordered at least 350+ Su-34 Fullback bombers to replace their old Su-24s and Su-25s
- ordered at least 350-400 MiG-35 variant (offered in MRCA) to replace their old MiG-29As
- ordered at least 80-100 MiG-29Ks for their 2-3 carriers in Russian Navy
Now imagine how much money these orders from VVS and RN would've generated for the arms companies even if we consider economies of scale in each of the production lines mentioned above. Traditionally, China and we are their largest buyers of arms. China in recent years has managed to rummage for canceled designs all over the world from places like Israel apart from blatantly copying Russian designs and has come up with its own indigenous versions of these fighters to create domestic base for aeronautics and therefore almost stopped buying tier 1 weapons from Russians. That leaves us as their largest buyers which we still do due to a lack of far-sightedness from our
sarkari, fly-swatting, paan-eating dodos and corrupt defense ministry politicians. After us, come Malaysia, Venezuela, Vietnam, Indonesia, some Arab states and a host of African countries that buy about 1/10th of what we do in a go.
Also, we're the only ones right now in a position to jointly finance and develop a stealth fighter that would cost $90-100 million apiece compared to other countries. Brazil was an option and Russia even invited them to join but somehow that didn't click well. Israel's Lavi designer has considered joining the PAKFA program, but that's still words. And I doubt Israel could afford more than a max of 80-100 fighters in one go.
Therefore, Russia
has to come up with an ingenious solution to keep its current customer base happy and attract more West-oriented customers into its fold (like Malaysia that dumped F/A-18s and went for Su-30 MKMs) if it has to survive it out. And also Russia needs to seriously work up on its
Marketing skills. For such a strong arms manufacturer, it is really, really inefficient. They've to take cues from SAAB, LM, Boeing, EADS etc on marketing and also press the VVS and RN to order fighters.
