As Ukrainian investigative journalists managed to find out, the aggressor country Russia uses Tu-160 strategic bombers, which Ukraine handed over to it in 1999 in exchange for repayment of debts for consumed Russian gas.
Points of attention
- At least 6 Ukrainian aircraft are in combat formation of the Russian army.
- The agreement on the transfer of aircraft and missiles was concluded without the consent of the Ukrainian parliament.
- Ex-President Kuchma claims that these strategic bombers would not have been able to help Ukraine during the war.
Ukrainian bombers in the Russian army — what is known
Journalists of the "Schemes" project conducted a detailed analysis of open data and compared the serial numbers of the aircraft in the agreement of those times, which were searched in the archive, data from international air registers and numbers of bombers used by the Russian Federation, which was recorded by the GUR.
As a result, it was possible to identify ten Ukrainian strategic aircraft, which Kyiv handed over to Moscow.
What is important to understand, first of all, about the Tu-160, which was given other names in Russia:
"Mykola Kuznetsov" (previously it was a Ukrainian plane with flight number "10"),
"Vasyl Senko" ("11"),
"Olexander Novikov" ("12"),
"Volodymyr Sudets" ("15"),
"Aleksii Plokhov" ("16"),
"Andrii Tupolev" ("18"),
"Ihor Sikorsky" ("22").
Investigators draw attention to the fact that at least 6 aircraft are in combat formation of the Russian army.
In addition, it was possible to find an agreement between the Ukrainian government headed by Valery Pustovoytenko and the Russian government under the leadership of Vladimir Putin, signed in Yalta in 1999.
According to it, Ukraine transferred to the Russian Federation 8 Tu-160 heavy bombers and three Tu-95MS, as well as 575 Kh-55 cruise missiles. For this, Moscow compensated Ukraine for the debt for Russian gas — in the amount of 275 million hryvnias. This is the determined cost of the transferred equipment.
In addition, it is indicated that the transfer of aircraft and missiles took place without the consent of the Parliament of Ukraine.
According to the journalists, the cost of the specified weapons was underestimated by as much as ten times.
Kuchma comments on the provision of bombers
The then President of Ukraine, Leonid Kuchma, in his comments to journalists, began to claim that even if strategic bombers remained in service with Ukraine, it would not significantly help in defense against the Russian Federation.
Russia has air defense assets capable of countering X-55-class missiles, while the enormous size and relatively low-speed bombers in the early days of the war would have been easy prey for Russian weapons both in the air and on airfields, he says.
Moreover, Kuchma assures that strategic weapons could hardly help in solving Ukraine's strategic tasks, 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, — said the ex-president.
