Russian Aircraft Corporation MiG in turn replaced by Alexey Fedorov in September 2004. In 2006, the Russian government merged 100% of Mikoyan shares with Ilyushin, Irkut, Sukhoi, Tupolev, and Yakovlev as a new company named United Aircraft Corporation. Specifically, Mikoyan and Sukhoi were placed within the same operating unit. MiG failed to win any major aircraft tender in the post-Soviet era, falling behind its Russian rival Sukhoi. According to press reports, the company was shedding hundreds of employees in late 2017 due to a shortage of orders. As of 2015 the company's business offering consists mostly of modernized MiG-29 aircraft. MiG is developing a
Sukhoi Su-27 by the Japan Ministry of Defense. Russia denied the incursion, saying the jets were making routine flights near the disputed Kuril Islands. In another encounter, on 23 April 2014 an Su-27 nearly collided with a United States Air Force Boeing RC-135U over the Sea of Okhotsk. Russia plans to replace the Su-27 and the Mikoyan MiG-29 eventually with the Sukhoi Su-57 stealth fifth-generation multi-role twin-engine fighter. A squadron of Su-27SM3s was deployed to Syria in November 2015 as part of the Russian military intervention in the Syrian Civil War. Ethiopian Su-27s reportedly shot down two Eritrean MiG-29s and damaged another