In his interview to VPK about a month ago General Igor Khvorov, the commander of the 37th Long-Range Army, described his vision for production of new aircraft (I was busy sorting out numbers and almost missed that bit).
As I understand, the plan is to complete the Tu-160 overhaul program, during which all currently deployed aircraft of this type will get new avionics. According to Khvorov, the program may take about 10-15 years, after which the industry would be ready to begin production of a new strategic bomber. The way Khvorov described it suggests that this will not be a completely new plane. He said that Tu-160 has about 75% of the features that the new aircraft will need and stressed the importance of avionics. Which is not unreasonable - it hardly makes sense to develop a new airframe (whether it makes sense to develop a new strategic bomber is also a legitimate question).
Tu-95MS is likely to stay in service for at least 10-15 more years, until the new aircraft is ready (assuming it will go ahead). They will also undergo an avionics upgrade, which will allow them to use conventional weapons (cruise missiles and gravity bombs). This modernization, however, will not be as deep as the one planned for Tu-160.
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Indeed the Russians have a elaborate plan to modernise the Tu-160 , Infact the Air Chief recently went on to say that the only thing that would be old is the Airframe Design , Internally the bomber will go a complete modernisation.
Few thing which can be expected from this modernisation and predictable are
1 ) Complete re-work on avionics , much lighter and compact avionics suite , Use on newer DSP/RDP which will save space,weight and will significantly improve the Avionics, Radar,Navigation and Weapon system performance
2 ) Stealth is an area where Russia has made quite some progress in the past few years , Use of new generation of RAM and Plasma Stealth on Tu-160 can be expected
3 ) Integration of new generation of Cruise missile like KH-555 & KH-101 and also a range of newer Conventional PGM and Standoff weapon system
Tu-160 to be armed with KAB-500S
In fact, in the interview Khvorov was asked about stealth. He basically said that it's too expensive and to vulnerable to elements to be practical. And it's hardly necessary these days anyway.
Developing a Aircraft with complete stealth capability a-la B-2 is a very expensive affair not to mention the technological challenges and hurdles involved .
The Rusian dont have a very wide experience with stealth as the Americans have nor do they have the financial muscle to develop and maintain it .
What they can look at or would be looking at is reducing the RCS/IR signature of existing Tu-160 by use of RAM/Plasma Stealth and other measures
One can develop a stealthy long range cruise missile to compensate for it and from what ever the released details are , thats what the Kh-101 is suppose to be stealthy with a 5000 km range and with pin point accuracy to hit targets