Russia attacks Ukraine with bombers provided by Kyiv in exchange for gas

Russian missile attacks on civilian infrastructure targets in Ukraine employ a Soviet-era strategy aviation from whom he received Kyiv in 1999 to pay for natural gas that Moscow supplied to its neighbor.

Investigation of journalists from the “Schematy” team of Radio Liberty (Radio Liberty) identified ten former Ukrainian planes that Russia used in attacks. These include six Tupolev Tu-160 (NATO: Blackjack) nuclear-capable supersonic strategic bombers, still operational out of the eight originally transferred, and four Tu-95MS (NATO: Bear) turboprop-powered strategic bombers.

After consulting the international aviation registry, journalists managed to identify the original Ukrainian Air Force tail numbers of seven Tu-160s, some of which still appear on the plane, which Moscow named after the famous Russians:

• Tail number “10” – “Mykola Kuznetsov”
• Tail number “11” – “Wasyl Senko”
• Tail number “12” – “Alexander Novikov”

• Tail number “15” – “Włodzimierz Sudeć”
• Tail number “16” – “Alexei Plokhov”
• Tail number “18” – “Andriy Tupolev”
• Tail number “22” – “Igor Sikorski”

They also discovered new names for the three Tu-95MS used by Russia, which appear to be derived from cities in Russia: “Krasnoyarsk”, “Sevastopol” and “Izborsk”.

Under the 1999 agreement, Ukraine sent eight Tu-160 and three Tu-95MS heavy bombers and 575 Kh-55 cruise missiles to Russia in exchange for settling Kiev’s debt for Russian gas in the amount of $275 million.

The transaction was investigated by the Temporary Investigative Commission (TIC), established by the Verkhovna Rada to investigate corruption and fraud in the Ukrainian Armed Forces in 2004–2017. The TIC estimated that the planes and missiles, which were given away without parliamentary oversight or consent, were worth more than $2 billion.

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I asked my ex for a comment Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma said that even if Ukraine retained strategic bombers, they would do little to defend the country from Russia.

In a written response, Kuchma stated: “Russia has air defense systems capable of countering Kh-55-type missiles, while the huge and relatively slow-moving bombers would become easy prey for Russian weapons in the first days of the war, both in the air and in the air.” and at airports.”

“Strategic weapons could hardly help solve Ukraine’s strategic tasks and clearly did not fit Ukrainian capabilities. We didn’t have any missile test sites. We didn’t even have enough territory to operate these weapons because strategic weapons require strategic space.”

On the night of October 3, drones from the SBU, Special Operations Forces and other defense forces flew into Borisoglebsk airport In Voronezh region of Russia. The airport includes warehouses with cockpits, parking lots for Su-35 and Su-34 aircraft and aviation fuel warehouses.

On the night of October 13, a Tu-134 military transport plane was burned at Orenburg-2 airport in Russia. Previously, the An-3 aircraft of Borus Airlines crashed in the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia) in Russia.

October 20 Ukrainian Defense Forces attacked infrastructure of the Lipetsk-2 military airport in the Lipetsk Oblast of the Russian Federation and the Sverdlov plant in Dzerzhinsk in the Nizhny Novgorod Oblast, during which explosions and air defense activities were observed.