Russia claims the "Father" of the Lockheed Martin F-35B stealth fighter is none other than its very own Yakovlev Yak-141, a prototype supersonic vertical take-off and landing fighter that never made it to service after being scrapped in August 1991.

As for the F-35B's "Mother," that seems to be the unusual case of military technical cooperation between the former Soviet Union and the U.S. before the fall of the Soviet Union on December 25, 1991.

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The Yak-141 was developed by the Yakovlev Design Bureau in 1971 as an answer to the Soviet Union's dearth of aircraft carriers. Instead of opting to build a huge carrier fleet as did its foe, the U.S. Navy, the Soviet Navy decided to experiment on a VOTL aircraft that could take-off and land on the small deck spaces of heavy cruisers and other warships. Hence, the Yak-141.

The collapse of the Soviet Union put paid to the Yak-141, however, but not before an intriguing incident Russian media said gave birth to the F-35B.

According to the Russians, Lockheed Martin offered to cooperate with Yakovlev on a new VTOL fighter project. The arrangement lasted for only a year, but it became a landmark as it was the first instance of military-technical cooperation between the U.S. and the Soviet Union.

It seems that as part of this deal, Lockheed Martin acquired all the technical documentation of the Yak-141 from Yakovlev.

Shortly after that, said Russian media, a prototype of a carrier-based VTOL fighter -- later known as the F-35B flown only by the U.S. Marine Corps -- was unveiled in the United States.

The Russians say the F-35B "looks surprisingly similar to the Soviet Yak-141," while the design and layout of the Yak-141 and F-35B "are almost identical."

In addition, "the location of the compartment with the lifting fan and the location of the tail beams respective to the lift-piston engine are the same in both planes."