The report is a bit of mishmash. The Soviets did have CNC machines. But because the Soviets were almost a decade behind the West in terms of computer technology they only started mass manufacturing CNC tools in the 1980s after they mass produced the Elektronika-NC control module. The design tools and environment lagged quite a lot. You did CAD in the Soviet Union on minicomputers. PDP-11 compatibles.
The Soviets were way behind in regards to modern workstations in the late 1980s. They had no real mass production equivalent to a Sun workstation for example. So CAD software development lagged quite a lot. Another huge choke point was the lag in DRAM technology. The Soviets were still mostly making 64 Kbit DRAM chips at the point of collapse, and the most advanced Comecon DRAM chips from Eastern Germany were 256 Kbit. So even if a proper CPU existed you wouldn't have enough cheap memory to run graphical workstation applications on a mass produced machine.
When the collapse of the Soviet Union happened, the country massively switched to buying Western PC compatibles to bridge the gap in performance with regards to workstations and personal computers. The Western CAD software which ran on them was optimized to work with Western tools. The Soviet consumer goods industry collapsed as people started consuming imported consumer goods. And so a large chunk of Soviet industrial production vanished. Of what could be exported most of it was military gear which was still competitive in the world market, part of those funds were used to acquire Western tools and train experts to use them abroad.
The article seems to be like a decade behind the trends in both Russia and China though. Russia does have CAD/CAM software. They have KOMPAS-3D as a CAD software solution and there are CAM modules for it which can control CNC machines.
The naval shipyards already use KOMPAS-3D. The naval design bureaus are moving to it. The Russian government has a program to move the entire aerospace sector to KOMPAS-3D as well. For example the PD-35 engine was already partially designed with KOMPAS-3D and the PD-8V is going to be fully designed with it.
With the Western tool companies leaving the Russian market tool production has also been booming. There are Russian producers for most of the required equipment unlike what the article says. They just lack production capacity. Russia has several producers of computer controlled laser cutting tools and metal 3D printing tools. Kalashnikov produces 5-axis CNC machines. Sterlitamak Machine Tool Enterprise and others part of STAN produce CNC lathe and milling tools. The machine tool plant formerly owned by DMG Mori also is now under control of its Russian employees and has been developing a new lineup in collaboration with Chinese tools producers. Given their large sales network in Russia they will probably quickly expand their sales.
As for the supposed "lack of quality" of Chinese CNC machines. Again these "analysts" are like a decade behind the times. You can tell this by how quickly Russia has been moving their machine tool imports from European to Far Eastern suppliers. With the majority of tools currently being bought from China. It is not surprising that a lot of existing facilities still use Western tools. Back when Chinese tools were not competitive. Russian tools still lacked variety and production volume. Well that isn't the case anymore.
