Washington has reportedly bought 81 plane from Kazakhstan for a mean value of lower than $19,000 every
The US authorities has reportedly bought a lot of the retired Soviet-era warplanes bought off in a latest public sale by Kazakhstan, presumably to be used by Kiev’s forces within the Russia-Ukraine battle.
Washington was the profitable bidder for 81 of the 117 plane, shopping for them “by offshore entities” for a mixed $1.5 million, the Kiev Put up reported on Sunday. The report didn’t give a breakdown of what number of planes of every kind have been acquired, however it mentioned the acquisition included MiG-29 fighter jets, MiG-27 fighter bombers and Su-24 bombers.
Kazakhstan additionally supplied MiG-31 interceptors within the public sale. The entire plane have been listed as being in “unusable situation,” in keeping with the report, and the prices of modernizing them have been deemed economically impractical. The warplanes, which have been constructed within the Seventies and Eighties, have been retired beneath the Kazakh army’s modernization program.
The typical unit price paid by the US was lower than $19,000. In truth, the whole fleet of 81 jets price solely about as a lot as ten AGM-114 Hellfire missiles, one of many air-to-surface munitions generally utilized by US drones and warplanes.
US officers haven’t declared how the retired Kazakh planes will likely be used, the Kiev Put up mentioned. “Hypothesis has grown that – because the plane varieties are all in service with Ukraine – it’s doubtless they may finally be transferred to Kiev.” If that occurs, the newspaper added, Ukrainian forces will doubtless disassemble the plane for spare elements or use them as decoys at airfields.
Kazakhstan, which is traditionally a Russian ally, has more and more engaged with Western nations for the reason that Ukraine disaster started in February 2022. Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev hosted UK Overseas Minister David Cameron’s go to to Astana earlier this month. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken traveled to Astana final yr for talks with Central Asian leaders.
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