It might just possibly be check, it's very far from checkmate. And if it's more than a pawn sacrifice I'll be surprised.
I suspect they're trying to sacrifice the Su 57 to get sales to the RuAF of this instead, so I was right, it's a pawn sacrifice/exchange.
You suspect... Based on what, exactly?
Deductive reasoning from the available facts, its a thing.
And did you just cite your own theory as confirmation for your previous trite analogy?
No, I noted the newly available facts were consistent with it.
Rock-solid reasoning, to be certain.
All defence projects exist in three dimensions: technological, political, and economic. Any serious assessment of them has to consider all of those dimensions. Consideration of economics has been noticeably absent from many of the posts about this aircraft.
Technologically, we know that Sukhoi are capable of building modern aircraft. But that's only one dimension of the production puzzle.
Politically, we know that Russia wants to expand back towards superpower status, but also that it's production pronouncements are frequently not followed through (cf the Su-57), because of economic weakness. We also know, from Sukhoi's own statements, that this is a private venture aircraft and not in response to a RuAF requirement.
Economically we know that Sukhoi needs RuAF funding to get this through development, and a RuAF order to finance a production line. But we also know that production orders of Su-57 have been promised every year since 2016. It's possible this is the year it really happens, and it's just as possible that things will proceed true to established form. (I'd also note Sukhoi seems to be handbuilding the current batch of 12, so they haven't had the money for a proper production line as yet).
Sukhoi knows that the Su-57 has spent five years going nowhere because state funding keeps turning into fairy stories, and that its major export opportunity, FGFA, has probably evaporated as a result.
A conventional company would be tremendously exposed as a result. Sukhoi isn't quite a conventional company because it's effectively state backed and UAC won't be allowed to fail, but it does seem mostly to try to behave like one. So we have to ask, why would Sukhoi, facing major funding failures on Su-57, exacerbate its exposed situation by trying to get RuAF backing of a second project?
If it can't get production funding for Su-57, which does have a RuAF requirement, what makes it think it can for this, which doesn't?
And worse, if it does get production funding for this, then it's likely to cannibalize Sukhoi's sales of one or more of Su-27, Su-34 and Su-57, depending on its precise role. And if it does cannibalize orders of one of those, is the funding for the replacement guaranteed?
There's a tremendous economic risk to Sukhoi wrapped up in this aircraft.
There are only two scenarios I see that make economic sense, because I think the chances of RuAF buying both this and Su-57 given what we've seen of Russian defence procurement over the past decade are about zero.
First scenario: Sukhoi has concluded that the Su-57 is not affordable for the RuAF and it's going to be stuck in a development hell where in a good year it gets a handful of orders and in a bad year it doesn't get the money for the last set of good year orders. The only way it's going to get out of that is to replace an unaffordable aircraft with a closer to affordable one that's got a better chance of prying money out of Putin's wallet. It therefore needs an aircraft at a lower price point, and the quickest way to slice big chunks of money out of an aircraft is to ditch an engine. This isn't so much an exciting new aircraft, it's the Russian version of Volker Ruhe's Eurofighter-Lite.
Second scenario: Sukhoi still thinks it's an OKB and doesn't give a damn about production, that's something that can be left to KnAAPO. All Sukhoi wants is RuAF funding to keep developing new aircraft, who cares if they ever enter service. But that doesn't ring true given Sukhoi's relentless production and promotion of new Flanker variants in the 90s in the hope of landing an export order or two. Sales do seem to matter to them.
The argument from some in this thread that this is solely export focused just doesn't add up on economic grounds, so I'm not even calling it a third scenario. Taking a civilian aircraft to certification is reckoned to cost $1Bn nowadays, you can expect much more for a combat aircraft and for it to take a considerable amount of time, easily up to a decade based on recent examples. And then you need to spend probably as much again on productionization and creating the production line. Building fighters profitably needs both state-funded development and a major production commitment from your home state. A dozen exports here and a half-dozen there won't fund development flying and a production line.
In the end it all comes down to the money. Where does Sukhoi think that money for development and productionization is coming from? And what gets cut to pay for that? And the only scenario that makes sense to me is that they're deliberately undercutting Su-57 to try and find a solution that's cheap enough to unlock major RuAF procurement, not the odd dribble every couple of years that Su-57's getting.