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@gbj_tester
Copy might have been the wrong word (except for the various reverse-engineering jobs, such as the Tu-4), but Soviet military aircraft development was very obviously reactive. Aeronautical principles may lead to similar solutions to similar problems, but there was undoubtedly some form copying going on too. For example, the original Tu-144 was clearly a Concorde copy, until Tupolev discovered that they couldn't make the ogive wing work and changed the planform to a double delta plus canards.
The weaknesses of Soviet industry drove the differences. Mission-for-mission, Soviet design bureaux kept coming up with bigger aircraft, because they failed to miniaturise the electronic systems and suffered from high specific fuel consumption in their turbine engines, leading to a need for big airframes to carry bulky and heavy systems plus sufficient fuel to meet the range/payload demands.