The White Swan

Tu-160M, the "White Swan" is the largest, the heaviest and the fastest bomber in the world. Originally a Soviet design, the White Swan you see today has limited continuity with the USSR. It was created in the late 2010s, as a combined project of Putin's Russia and the Siemens Digital Factory.

Original Tu-160 was created as a domesday weapon of the Cold War. Designed in the 1970s, it was officially launched into production in 1984. And yet, with the collapse of the Soviet Union the project was aborted. In 1992, their production ceased.

No Nuclear War, no White Swans.

The reasons for this abortion were economic.

With the fall of USSR, new Russia suffered a catastrophic drop in military expenditures. As the state was buying little weaponry (and paying for it highly erratically), entire production chains were wiped out. That included a range of ultra expensive projects such as the strategic bombers production.

As the military spending dropped, production of all types of bombers virtually ceased.

Yet, despite the calamitous fall in expenditures, it would be incorrect to describe the 1990s developments as a free fall of the military production. To the contrary, the fall was very much unfree. Kremlin could not really save the Soviet military industrial potential, but it was unwilling to just let it disappear either.

At this specific moment in history, Moscow had no money. As a result, its military industrial complex was to suffer catastrophic losses, both in capacities and capabilities. Consequently, it was deemed of utmost importance to preserve the seed, the nucleus of Soviet military production through this time of troubles.

If the seed is lost, everything is lost. If the seed is preserved, then, in better times, you can plant it back to the ground and grow it all again.

This may be the key reason why having to choose what to save the Russian government overwhelmingly prioritised saving the R&D.

That is Design Bureaus