[1] The Tupolev Design Bureau introduced the Tu-334 in early 1989 as an eventual propfan-powered airliner to potentially enter service for Aeroflot in 1995.

[4] There was also concern that Tupolev could not meet Soviet state carrier Aeroflot's urgent capacity needs quick enough.

In April 1990, while announcing the interim aircraft's service entry date of 1993, Tupolev's chief designer said that the ultrahigh bypass engine to be used would be a Lotarev (now renamed to the Progress design bureau) propfan resembling the General Electric GE36 UDF, and not the propfan it had been working on.

[7] Then a subsequent report named the Tu-334 propfan engine as the Lotarev D-27, a 3.8-metre diameter (12.5-foot; 3,800-millimetre; 150-inch), 11,200 kgf thrust (24,700 lbf; 110 kN) powerplant with a TSFC of 12 g/(kN⋅s) (0.44 lb/(lbf⋅h)).

[9] Days earlier, the Soviet Union premiered a running propfan engine before Western audiences for the first time, flying an Ilyushin Il-76LL testbed aircraft with one installed Progress D-236 engine to the ILA Air Show in Hannover, Germany.

[11] Work commenced on the Tu-334 in the early 1990s, but proceeded slowly due to funding problems arising from the breakup of the Soviet Union.

A functional aircraft first flew on 8 February 1999, and later that year, agreements were put in place for MiG to undertake part of the production of the airliner.

In turn, the certification of the aircraft and its planned entry into serial production was delayed multiple times.