“Russia uses Tu-160 strategic bombers, which Ukraine handed over to it in 1999 in exchange for repayment of debts for consumed Russian gas. Source: investigation “Schemes” Details: Journalists compared the serial numbers of the planes in the agreement of those times, which were searched in the archive, data from international air registers and the numbers of bombers used by the Russian Federation, which was recorded by the Main Intelligence Directorate.”, — write: www.pravda.com.ua
Russia uses Tu-160 strategic bombers, which Ukraine handed over to it in 1999 in exchange for repayment of debts for consumed Russian gas.
Source: “Scheme” investigation
Details: The journalists compared the serial numbers of the planes in the agreement of those times, which was searched in the archive, data from international air registers and numbers of bombers used by the Russian Federation, which was recorded by the Main Directorate of Intelligence.
In total, Schemy identified ten Ukrainian strategic aircraft transferred by Ukraine to Russia.
We are talking about the Tu-160, which was given other names in Russia: “Mykola Kuznetsov” (previously it was a Ukrainian plane with the serial number “10”), “Vasyl Senko” (“11”), “Olexander Novikov” (“12”) , “Volodymyr Sudets” (“15”), “Aleksii Plokhov” (“16”), “Andriy Tupolev” (“18”), “Ihor Sikorskyi” (“22”).
At least 6 aircraft are in combat formation of the Russian army.
“Schemes” also found in the archive an agreement between the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine headed by Valery Pustovoitenko and the government of the Russian Federation under the leadership of Vladimir Putin, signed in Yalta in 1999. According to it, Kyiv transferred to Moscow eight Tu-160 heavy bombers and three Tu-95MS, as well as 575 Kh-55 cruise missiles. For this, Russia compensated Ukraine for the debt for Russian gas – in the amount of 275 million hryvnias. This is the determined cost of the transferred equipment.
According to journalists, the transfer of planes and missiles took place without the approval of the Verkhovna Rada.
The investigation also indicated that the cost of the weapons was understated by ten times. This is stated in the conclusions of the Temporary Investigative Commission of the Verkhovna Rada to conduct an investigation into the facts of embezzlement in the Armed Forces of Ukraine and the undermining of the state’s defense capabilities in the period from 2004 to 2017.
The then President of Ukraine, Leonid Kuchma, commented on “Schemes” that even if strategic bombers remained in service with Ukraine, it would not significantly help in defense against the Russian Federation.
straight language Kuchma: “Russia has air defense assets capable of countering X-55-class missiles, while huge-sized and relatively low-speed bombers would have been easy prey for Russian weapons both in the air and on airfields even in the early days of the war.
Strategic weapons could hardly help in solving the strategic tasks of Ukraine, and they definitely did not fit into the Ukrainian scale. We did not have test sites for rockets. We did not even have sufficient territorial extent for the exploitation of these means – because strategic weapons require strategic space.”