A senior Russian Air Force official said he hoped the country's military will begin receiving new An-124 Ruslan (Condor) heavy-lift transport aircraft by 2020.
"I believe that by 2020 we will begin receiving new aircraft of this type," Lt. Gen. Viktor Kachalkin, commander of the 61st Air Army, said Friday at a news conference in Moscow.
Russian Air Force Commander, Col. Gen. Alexander Zelin, said at the MAKS-2009 air show outside Moscow in August that the Defense Ministry decided to resume the production of the An-124, which could be used both for domestic and military purposes.
The An-124 was designed by the Antonov Design Bureau in 1982, and was produced in Ukraine's Kiev and Russia's Ulyanovsk until 1995. The plane has a maximum payload of 150 metric tons with a flight range of around 3,000 kilometers (1,864 miles).
Kachalkin said that that the aircraft of this type is in high demand as "An-124 Ruslan is the most powerful military-transport aircraft in the world."
He added that military equipment produced in the Soviet times is "unrivaled" and must be developed further without the necessity for Russia of placing military orders abroad.
The cargo jet is the world's third largest after the An-225 and the Airbus A380F.
Russia and Ukraine reached a preliminary agreement to resume production of the An-124 in April of 2008.
MOSCOW, December 25 (RIA Novosti)
