[3] In the 1990s, the end of the Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet Union resulted in severe disruptions in funding for Russia's MFI (Russian: МФИ, short for: Многофункциональный фронтовой истребитель, romanized: Mnogofunksionalni Frontovoy Istrebitel, lit.
Owing to high costs, the MFI was cancelled and a new programme for a more affordable multirole fifth-generation fighter, the PAK FA (Russian: ПАК ФА, short for: Перспективный авиационный комплекс фронтовой авиации, romanized: Perspektivnyy Aviatsionnyy Kompleks Frontovoy Aviatsii, lit.
Despite not being selected, Mikoyan continued to develop its own proposal as the LMFS (Russian: ЛМФС, short for: Легкий многофункциональный фронтовой самолёт, romanized: Liogkiy Mnogofunktsionalniy Frontovoi Samolyet, lit.
[1][6] It was possible that Mikoyan may revise the design into a single-engine configuration by using the Sukhoi Su-57's next-generation izdeliye 30 engines, even though the latest wind tunnel mock up of the plane shows a twin-engine aircraft .
[5][7] United Aircraft Corporation was developing the MiG LMFS out of its own funds,[5] the Russian MoD preferring to wait for the Su-57 to enter serial production before starting to finance the construction of another smaller stealth fighter.
If this happens, according to defence journalists, Turkey would perhaps in exchange share some of its TAI TF-X stealth light fighter technology to MiG, which might be used to help advance the development of the LMFS; the funds of a foreign co-investor being beneficial.
[9] On April 16, 2020, after a long hiatus, United Aircraft Corporation announced on Twitter that MiG had restarted their research on a light fifth-generation stealth jet fighter.