Russia hits Ukraine with bombers handed over to Kiev in exchange for gas

Russian missile attacks on civilian infrastructure targets in Ukraine use Soviet-era strategic weapons aviation from which it has received Kiev in 1999 to pay for the natural gas that Moscow supplied to its neighbor.

An investigation by journalists from Radio Liberty’s “Schemes” team (Radio Liberty) has identified ten former Ukrainian aircraft that Russia used in the attacks. These include six nuclear-capable Tupolev Tu-160 (NATO: Blackjack) supersonic strategic bombers, which are still operational from an original total of eight transferred, and four turboprop-powered Tu-95MS (NATO: Bear) strategic bombers .

After consultation with the International Aviation Register, the journalists were able to identify the original Ukrainian Air Force tail numbers of seven of the Tu-160s, some of which are still visible on the aircraft, which Moscow has renamed after famous Russians:

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

• Tail number “15” – “Vladimir Sudets”
• Tail number “16” – “Alexey Plokhov”
• Tail number “18” – “Andriy Tupolev”
• Tail number “22” – “Igor Sikorsky”

They also discovered the new names of three of the Tu-95MS used by Russia, which appear to be named after cities in Russia: ‘Krasnoyarsk’, ‘Sevastopol’ and ‘Izborsk’.

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

The deal was investigated by a Temporary Investigative Committee (TIC), established by the Verkhovna Rada, to investigate corruption and fraud within the Armed Forces of Ukraine in the period from 2004 to 2017. The TIC estimated that the value of the aircraft and missiles which were given away without any parliamentary oversight or approval and were worth more than $2 billion.

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Kiev accuses the Kremlin of wanting to escalate the war ahead of the new US president taking office next year and warns allies that now is the critical time to act.

Asked for his comment, former President of Ukraine Leonid Kuchma said that even if Ukraine had retained the strategic bombers, they would have done little to defend the country against Russia.

In a written response, Kuchma said: “Russia has air defense systems that can stop Kh-55 missiles, while large bombers with relatively low speed would have become easy prey for Russian weapons in the first days of the war, both in the air as in the air. and at airports.”

“Strategic weapons could hardly help solve Ukraine’s strategic tasks, and they absolutely did not fit Ukrainian capabilities. We had no missile test sites. We didn’t even have enough territory to use these weapons, because strategic weapons require strategic space.”

On the night of October 3, drones from the SBU, Special Operations Forces and other armed forces flew into the country. Borisoglebsk airport in the Voronezh region of Russia. The airfield contained warehouses with cockpits, parking lots for Su-35 and Su-34 aircraft and storage facilities for aviation fuel.

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

On October 20, Ukrainian forces attacked the infrastructure of the Lipetsk-2 military airport in the Lipetsk region of the Russian Federation and the Sverdlov plant in Dzerzhinsk, Nizhny Novgorod Oblast, where explosions and air defense activities were observed.