Hadn’t kept up in recent years and also had mistakenly identified some of the recent Sukhoi transports with Antonov. Sorry to hear they have fallen on such hard times.
Although the Soviet Union was THE enemy during the entirety of my military career, it was interesting to see their design solutions to common military mission requirements. The succession of MBT designs, the innovations in ship design, and especially the aircraft designs always told you how talented and original Russian engineers were is their definition of key attributes and how to go about achieving them.
I still consider the Tupolev Tu-95 “Bear” bomber in its original glass nose form among the most beautiful propeller driven aircraft ever flown. I understand it is not much fun to fly in, but it sure is beautiful to watch as it arrows its way through the sky.
Tu-95 is as fast as modern commercial jet and the latter only recently started to match it in fuel efficiency.