After announcing the abandonment of nuclear weapons and accepting the supervision of the United Nations, Iran's living conditions have improved considerably.

With international sanctions such as trade embargoes and export restrictions lifted, Iran's economy is gaining momentum, and defense modernization is on the agenda.

For Iran, the top priority is to make up for the shortcomings.

After decades of international sanctions, Iran has built up a relatively complete and developed military industrial system relative to its national strength.

It's just that in the field of high technology, Iran is still quite backward.

In other words, Iran is able to produce some weapons and equipment with a low technological content on its own, but it cannot create advanced equipment in the true sense.

This problem is most evident in the equipment of the Air Force.

Being able to make tanks is nothing remarkable, even North Korea can produce tanks, and what the performance of tanks is, you will only know when you go to the battlefield.

At the beginning, the T-72 was blown to the gods, and as a result, it was swept by the coalition forces in the Gulf War, which is the best example.

To be able to build a fighter jet would be remarkable.

Looking at the world, there are only four countries that can independently develop, design, and manufacture advanced fighter jets, namely the United States, Russia, China, and France.

Even the United Kingdom, one of the five permanent members of the Security Council, does not have the ability to build fighter jets on its own.

Whether it is the EF2000 in service or yesterday's Huanghua's "Tornado", it is jointly developed with other countries, and the last fighter developed and produced by Britain alone is the "Harrier" type, which made its first flight in 1978, and in a strict sense, this is an attack aircraft with an experimental nature, and it is the United States that really carries forward the "Harrier" type, that is, the AV-8B developed on the basis of the "Harrier".

In the era of fifth-generation fighters, only the United States, Russia and China had the ability to independently develop and produce fighters.

Of course, the "Shinshin" test aircraft that Japan is engaged in is not called a fighter plane.

As for Iran, forget it.

That's right, Iran has also engaged in several "fighter jets" with extremely sci-fi appearances, and some have even flown into the sky, but the Wright brothers flew into the sky more than a hundred years ago.

For a country like Iran, self-development is, and import is the right way.

There are only two countries willing to sell fighter jets to Iran, one is Russia and the other is China.

Although the military embargo on Iran has been lifted one after another, and diplomatic relations are gradually returning to normal, not a single European or American country will sell advanced fighter jets to Iran.

Initially, Iran pinned its hopes on Russia.

It is undeniable that Russian fighters are not bad, and the Iranian Air Force has many Russian fighters, such as the Mig-29 and Su-24 that fled to Iran during the Gulf War, and dozens of countries import fighter jets from Russia, even Huaxia, which can produce its own fighters.

Not so long ago, Huaxia purchased 24 Su-35s from Russia.

Of course, there are more important reasons.

After the outbreak of the Syrian civil war, and especially after the Russian military contribution, Russia and Iran became close comrades-in-arms and had a large number of common interests.

Subsequently, Russia delivered the S-300 to Iran despite the opposition of Western countries.

In addition, Russian bombers often use Iran to bomb the opposition in Syria.

At the time of Russia's fight, Iran also followed the example of a gourd and attacked terrorist groups entrenched in Syria with missiles.

All in all, Russia's relations with Iran are not generally good.

Against this backdrop, it is not surprising that Iran is first considering procuring advanced fighter jets from Russia.

Unfortunately, Iran has clearly overlooked one issue.

In the arms trade, Russia is notoriously open-minded, and it is not an ordinary cheater.

India is well aware of this.

Crucially, Iran's relationship with Russia is more political and diplomatic, especially on the Syrian issue.

In the economic sphere, the two countries are actually adversaries.

Quite simply, Russia has been selling oil and gas for foreign exchange to support its national economy, while Iran is also a heavyweight energy exporter.

What's worse is that the main export objects of Russia and Iran are Huaxia!

In the past, Iran has been sanctioned by the international community, but China has always complied with United Nations resolutions and kept its oil imports from Iran within the quota.

Now, the sanctions have been lifted, and China is no longer restricted, and the oil trade with Iran has expanded.

However, China's domestic demand is limited, and the total amount of imports is also limited.

Buying more oil from Iran means reducing imports from other countries.

Saudi?

Apparently not!

You must know that several Gulf countries such as Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates and Oman have the lowest oil extraction costs in the world, and Russia is much higher.

The result is obvious, Huaxia has to abide by the laws of the market.

In recent years, Huaxia has rarely awarded additional purchase contracts to Russia, except for continuing to import oil and gas from Russia as agreed.

It's simple, it's too expensive.

Russian oil is mainly produced in Siberia, which is not only expensive to extract, but also a problem to transport.

According to unofficial data, China imports oil from Russia's Siberian oil fields, and the cost of the pipeline is amortized according to the design life, and the landing price per barrel is at least 15% higher than that of oil imported from the Gulf countries and transported to China's southern ports by ULCC.

In addition, Russian oil is a big drop in quality compared to Gulf oil.

Why buy Russian oil when you can buy better oil from Iran and other Gulf countries at a cheaper price?

Jointly supporting the Assad regime in Syria is politics, and buying and selling arms is business.

As a result, Russia intends to make a lot of money on Iran.

After Iran put forward the demand for the purchase of fighter jets and named the Su-35 and Su-34, Russia sold the Su-27 and Su-24 to Iran on the grounds that the Iranian Air Force had never used such advanced fighters and needed to be gradual and gradual.

What is this for?

You know, the production line for the Su-27 is about to close, and the Su-24 has long been discontinued.

Obviously, Russia wants to take this opportunity to dispose of a batch of second-hand fighters that are not usually used at all, and sell them for a sky-high price.

At that time, Russia made an offer of up to $4 billion for 30 Su-27s and 30 Su-24s!

Is Iran a deflated state like India?

Of course not!

Let's not talk about the price, what is the use of buying these fighters?

The Su-27SK was an early model, equipped with a fire control radar that lagged behind two decades ago, and could only use semi-active radar-guided air-to-air missiles such as the AA-10.

Not to mention the Su-24, the latest batch is almost twenty years old, with a maximum of ten years of remaining life.

Iran wants advanced fighter jets that can at least compete with the F-15SA and EF2000, not second-hand goods that are already behind the times!

If the west family can't do it, you can only go to the east family.