Russia ramps up Ilyushin Il-76 production as UAC hands over 7 aircraft in 2025
January 12, 2026
After years of delays and missed targets, Russia is finally beginning to increase production of its long-running Ilyushin Il-76 strategic airlifter. With an estimated seven new aircraft delivered to the Russian Air Force in 2025, output is now approaching levels not seen since the programme’s modernised restart, even as wartime losses and retirements continue to erode the fleet.
Russian Ilyushin Il-76 deliveries slowly increase
The increase in deliveries of Russia’s strategic transport aircraft becomes clearer when viewed against the programme’s recent production history.
Between 2019 and 2020, three Il-76s were delivered each year. In 2021, an estimated two were completed; this rose to five in 2023, and then to six in 2023 and 2024. In 2025, it is reported that a total of seven were delivered.
The seven new Il-76 aircraft were built at Ilyushin’s Aviastar-SP facility in Ulyanovsk and are of the latest Il-76MD-90A variant. All are confirmed deliveries to the Russian Air Force. It remains unclear whether any additional aircraft were completed in 2025 for customers other than the Russian military.
The seven Il-76s known to have been built in 2025 are:
- RF-78681 (serial number 0405), first flew 13 May 2025
- RF-78680 (serial number 0406), first flew 27 June 2025
- RF-78682 (serial number 0407), first flew 8 August 2025
- RF-78683 (serial number 0408), first flew 18 October 2025
- RF-78684 (serial number 0409), first flew 15 November 2025
- RF-78685 (serial number 0410), first flew 27 November 2025
- RF-78686 (serial number 0501), first flew 7 December 2025
Russia has plans to continue expanding production to around 12 per year by 2027, with longer-term plans to increase it further to 18 per year or higher, depending on export demand.
Ulyanovsk assembly line designed for far higher Il-76 output
While production is now rising, it remains well below the programme’s original ambitions. When Russia relaunched Il-76 production in the early 2010s, following the relocation of manufacturing from Uzbekistan to Ulyanovsk, the aim was to reach a sustained output of at least one aircraft per month. More than a decade on, deliveries are increasing, but at a pace that still falls short of those early targets.
One of the Russian Il-76 aircraft destroyed at Pskov Air Base by Ukrainian drones earlier this week. pic.twitter.com/By8tnSE6wd
— Brady Africk (@bradyafr) August 31, 2023
The modernised Il-76MD-90A assembly line was established in Ulyanovsk in 2021 as part of a broader effort to revive the programme. Designed to support output of up to 18 aircraft per year, the line required extensive modernisation of tooling, processes and systems to replace legacy Soviet-era production methods.
Ru-Aviation reported in mid-2025, “Initial plans announced in 2020 aimed to reach a production rate of 12 Il-76MD-90A aircraft per year by 2024, equivalent to one aircraft per month.”
Over the last five years, there have been at least 10 to 12 Il-76 losses in Ukraine, Russia, Mali, Sudan, and elsewhere. Plus, another two A-50s based on the Il-76 were destroyed. Twenty or so Il-76s are likely to have been retired over that time as aircraft come to the end of their useful lives.
A Russian Air Force IL-76 transport plane (the same platform being used for A-50 AWACS) lost an engine while flying, and crashed. pic.twitter.com/HBzrm08VMh
— Sergej Sumlenny, LL.M (@sumlenny) March 12, 2024
This suggests that production has more or less been equal to the number of Il-76 airframes removed from service over the last five years.
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The Il-76 is one of the last strategic airlifters still in production
More than 30 countries worldwide continue to operate the Il-76, with most aircraft delivered during the Soviet era. While many of these fleets are now ageing, they are generally not being replaced with the modernised Il-76MD-90A.
Export demand remains limited, although Russia’s state-run news agency TASS has reported that a small number of export contracts are in place.
Low exports are partly because the US CAATSA Act makes it problematic for countries to purchase the aircraft, and partly because domestic demand from Russia’s air force, battered by years of war, is taking priority. Russia’s Interfax recently reported that exports of aircraft are on hold.
With the C-17 Globemaster III no longer in production in the United States, only a handful of strategic airlifters remain in active manufacture worldwide. These include Russia’s Ilyushin Il-76, Europe’s Airbus A400M Atlas, and China’s Xi’an Y-20.
By contrast, aircraft such as the Embraer C-390 Millennium and C-130J Super Hercules occupy the tactical airlift segment rather than the strategic class.
Other aircraft can also fill some of the specialised roles of the Il-76. For example, India is in the process of converting Boeing 767s into new aerial tankers to supplement its existing fleet of Il-78 tankers built from modified Il-76s.
Featured Image: Wikimedia Commons
