Italian arms manufacturer Leonardo has denied claims about the Russian origins of the M-346 training rifle

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The M-346 training aircraft was developed in Europe in accordance with the most stringent requirements of the North Atlantic Alliance. This statement was published by the Italian arms concern Leonardo. At the same time, it is emphasized that the statements of the British media about the alleged Russian roots of the aircraft are groundless.

Let us recall that some time ago British tabloids reported that the M-346 was created on the basis of a Russian development. In modern Europe, where any connections with the Russian Federation are considered to be discrediting honor and dignity, the very fact of the appearance of such a publication is regarded as a stain on the reputation.



The situation even had to be commented on by British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who stated that London would not purchase aircraft produced in Russia.

The M-346 was designed, developed and manufactured in Europe to the highest NATO standards.

– Leonardo representatives hastened to justify themselves.

They added that pilots from all over Europe, as well as the UK, had already been trained on the aircraft in Italy.

It is worth noting that the Leonardo concern actively collaborated with the Russian aircraft manufacturer Yakovlev from 1993 to 2000. Moreover, the collaboration was carried out specifically on the project of a training aircraft.

However, after the termination of cooperation, the parties continued to work on their own UTS project.
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  1. +2
    April 10 2025 13: 11
    In my spare time I read the autobiographical notes of Iosif Naumovich Friedlander.
    It seems that the West has thoroughly robbed the USSR's achievements in many areas.
    1. +1
      April 10 2025 16: 05
      What are you talking about? They opened the gates to all the secret places for him and almost forced their innovations on him. Even a complete deer would become an innovator here.
  2. +1
    April 10 2025 14: 14
    The airframe is definitely Yak-130. The avionics and engine are theirs. If you put a Yak-346 and an M-XNUMX side by side, it's pretty hard to find a couple of differences, except for the paint job.
    1. -2
      April 10 2025 19: 35
      In fact, the Italians worked with us on the development and they have a common airframe. The Italians can say with the same confidence that the Yak has the 346th airframe. By the way, it is not very difficult to find the differences, the planes ended up being quite different.
      1. 0
        April 16 2025 20: 32
        Actually, the Italians worked with us on the development and they have a common airframe.

        Jointly, but this does not mean that all components of the aircraft were designed together. Each side did what it was more competent and advanced in. Therefore, the Yakovlev Design Bureau designed the airframe, and the Italians designed all its avionics and engine bindings. As soon as the design of the airframe was completed by the Yakovlev Design Bureau designers, Leonardo broke the contract and left the project, taking all the finished documentation with them. It looks like the Italians originally planned to do this. They used our design bureau on the cheap, and then blew us off. And now they can say whatever they want with "confidence". But even their partners and allies, the British, do not believe them.
        1. 0
          April 17 2025 00: 48
          I don't want to measure the pips and argue with you either, because I haven't held a candle. But I know that the demonstrator was presented in 1994, and in 1993 K. F. Popovich stated the following:

          In 1993, we began working with the Italian company Ermacchi... Joint research began with defining the appearance of the aircraft with the aim of adapting it to both international requirements and the requirements of the Russian Air Force. At the same time, the Italian partners demonstrated, using the example of all the world's trainers with which we were going to compete on the foreign market, that in 2001-2005 there would no longer be demand for a "pure" trainer - only combat training aircraft would be successful.
  3. 0
    April 10 2025 19: 06
    ah, it's all two-fold. They developed it together, but produced it separately. 346 is faster on the Internet.
    ours is more unpretentious (as I noticed in the photo, the protruding parts of the nuts/bolts stick out a lot)