In May 1, 1960 the USSR military authorities found themselves with some quite intact parts of the most famous U-2C ever. With nothing up to its performance in service, they decided to reverse-engineering it, engine, equipment, the lot. Beriev was the Bureau charged with that not so easy task. They proceed at a fast pace, but not fast enough: a fuselage was completed by mid-1961, but the project was cancelled in May 1962. Weight problem aroused, and why bother when they had already been able to shoot the “real deal” down. Beside the fact that satellites and faster recon aircraft were the obvious way to go.
A poor quality image of the Soviet Doppelgänger’s fuselage.
Aviation Rapture 
They were always good at stealing ideas. An example of one that was not particularly very good but was clever might be the B-29.
The Tu-4 was good enough. They were so behind technologically at the time some shortcuts were necessary to close the gap.
Agreed.