British frontline troop in Afghanistan are so short of helicopters and transport planes that they are being bailed out by the Russians. The Ministry of defence is using civilian russian-built Mi-8 and Mi-26 transport helicopters to ferry supplies and soldiers in Afghanistan. The pilots are freelance Russian and Ukrainians. Britain is also hiring massive commercial Russian Antonoc aircraft to fly vehicles and heavy equipment from RAF Brize Norton in Oxfordshire to Afghanistan.
Even more extraodinary is that elite British forces troops have been forced to use helicopters from a third world nation to mount covert operations because of a desperate lack of UK aircraft. The British Chinook 3As, which cost the british tax payer £259 million, are white elephants that cannot be flown, as the Ministry of defence failed to ask Boeing for the rights to the avionics software. Now the Chinooks are being downgraded, at an added cost of £60million, into normal utility helicopters. It will be at least 18 months before the work is completed. Then aircrews will have to be trained to fly them, which could take another 9 months.
The real stitch up!
1 year ago
2 comments:
Oh the irony. Using the old aircraft of the last superpower to be sent packing from Afghanistan. If there is one sort of helicopter the Afghans definitely know how to bring down it's a Russian one. Stop playing 'Great Games' with the lives of our soliers and the civilian population of Afghanistan.
Another example of the UK as a failed state. If this incompetent, imperialist structure cannot 'defend itself', there is simply no justification for it to continue one moment longer. Free Wales!
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