Taganrog Aviation Scientific-Technical Complex named after Beriev (TANTK Beriev)—the only company capable of producing and maintaining Russia’s A-50 airborne early warning aircraft—reported a net loss of more than 5 billion rubles (approximately $65 million) in 2025, according to its financial statements. Revenue collapsed 3.8 times year over year to $49 million. Liabilities climbed to $350 million.
Even before the war, the A-50 was being produced at a rate of no more than one every two years.
The A-50 is Russia’s equivalent of NATO’s AWACS: a flying radar station that detects cruise missiles, coordinates fighter operations, and directs air defense batteries. Russia entered the full-scale invasion with fewer than ten operational A-50s.
Since then, at least two have been shot down by Ukrainian missiles, at least two more were struck by FPV drones during Operation Spiderweb in June 2025, and Beriev’s own repair and production facility in Taganrog has been bombed four times in two years. Even before the war, the A-50 was being produced at a rate of no more than one every two years.
Rostec, Russia’s state defense conglomerate, announced in early 2024 that it would restart A-50 production. The company tasked with that restart just posted a $65 million loss.
One balance sheet, three crises
In 2024, Beriev posted a profit of $15.4 million. The reversal coincides with a year in which Ukrainian forces struck the Taganrog facility multiple times—destroying the one-of-a-kind A-60 laser testbed aircraft, an A-100 next-generation AWACS prototype, and a hangar used to upgrade Tu-95MS strategic bombers into cruise missile carriers.
Those Tu-95s carry Kh-101 missiles used in Russian strikes on Ukrainian cities. The Taganrog plant was also hit in March and December 2024, as well as in July 2025.
But Beriev’s balance sheet reflects more than bomb damage. Its accounts receivable—money owed to the company—halved from $272 million to $129 million. Its liabilities to creditors rose from $311 million to $350 million.
The state has forced banks to extend an estimated $210–250 billion in preferential loans to contractors that often cannot repay them.
Getting paid less while owing more: this is the debt pattern that Harvard researcher Craig Kennedy identified across Russia’s defense sector, where the state has forced banks to extend an estimated $210–250 billion in preferential loans to contractors that often cannot repay them.
One company, three crises: Ukrainian strikes destroying production capacity, sanctions blocking replacement equipment, and a war economy burying the very firms it depends on in debt.
The boom is over
Beriev is not alone. Russia’s war-related industries grew 20–30% annually in 2023–2024. In 2026, that growth is projected to fall to 4–5%, according to Russia’s Economy Ministry forecast cited by Bloomberg. Industries tied to the military sector entered a period of stagnation or decline in September 2025 for the first time since the full-scale invasion began.
Russia’s own Center for Macroeconomic Analysis warned the economy had entered conditions “close to stagflation.”
Advertised salaries in the defense sector dropped 10% year over year. GDP growth slowed from over 4% in 2023–2024 to roughly 1% in 2025. The IMF forecasts 0.6% for 2025 and 1% for 2026. The Kremlin calls this “managed cooling.” Russia’s own Center for Macroeconomic Analysis warned the economy had entered conditions “close to stagflation for the first time since early 2023.”
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Exposed supply chain
Beriev does not build A-50s alone. A November 2025 RUSI study on Sukhoi supply chains found roughly 1,300 companies connected to Russian military aviation production—many unsanctioned, most located within range of Ukrainian strikes.
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When such a factory is destroyed, production stalls not just at the damaged site but at every plant downstream.
In September 2025, Ukrainian forces hit SKIF-M, a precision tooling manufacturer near Belgorod that supplies 70% of its output to the aerospace sector. When such a factory is destroyed, sanctions prevent replacing the equipment, and production stalls not just at the damaged site but at every plant downstream.
Debt drowns the survivors
Factories that haven’t been hit are struggling with a different problem. Intercepted correspondence from Russian defense plant managers, obtained by Ukrainian cyber activists, describes an industry in financial crisis: products delivered at prices fixed in 2019, components purchased at current market rates, and contract payments frozen for three to five years. One plant director wrote that state funding didn’t cover the interest on loans needed to pay suppliers.
Defense-sector lending alone totaled around $202 billion between 2022 and 2024.
By late 2025, one in four Russian companies with loans had missed payments, according to Ukraine’s Foreign Intelligence Service. The number of legal entities with overdue debt reached 165,000—up 100,000 since 2022. Defense-sector lending alone totaled around $202 billion between 2022 and 2024, concentrated in the banking system without transparency, and at risk of rapidly becoming non-performing.
High-end production is the weakest link
Russia’s defense industry is not collapsing overnight. It still produces drones, artillery shells, and refurbished tanks in significant quantities. But those are relatively simple products. The high-end systems—surveillance aircraft, fighter jets, precision electronics—require specialized facilities, foreign components, and skilled workers that are the hardest to sustain under combined pressure.
Fewer operational A-50s means degraded coordination for Russia’s glide bomb campaigns on the front lines and cruise missile strikes on Ukrainian cities.
Beriev illustrates the distinction. Drones can be assembled in converted civilian factories. An A-50 requires a dedicated aerospace complex, specialized radar systems, and production timelines measured in years.
The November 2025 strike on Taganrog destroyed not only current repair capacity but the A-100 prototype—meaning Russia lost both its present AWACS maintenance capability and the development path for its future replacement.
Fewer operational A-50s means degraded coordination for Russia’s glide bomb campaigns on the front lines and cruise missile strikes on Ukrainian cities. For Moscow, Beriev’s insolvency is not an accounting problem. It is a strategic one.
