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Where there is no law, but every man does what is right in his own eyes, there is the least of real liberty
Henry M. Robert

If Gary Powers Had an OC–135 Instead of a U-2, He Would Not Have Been Shot Down Over Ukraine Americans come to Ukraine to help us to clear the open sky

13 November, 2012 - 00:00

These were the words of the representative of Defense Ministry of Ukraine after the presentation of two airplanes (the American OC-135 and Ukrainian An-30) held in Boryspil on June 16. These planes were specially constructed to meet the requirements of International Open Skies Treaty. On Thursday they will make an observation flight over the territory of Ukraine.

The Open Skies Treaty was based on the simple concept: each of the 27 participating states can make such flights over the territory of other participating countries. Special airplane equipment enables control of the military activities of neighbors legally. However, the representative of Department of Armament and Disarmament Control of Ukrainian Ministry of Foreign Affairs Yuri Kryvonos claimed that this treaty is designed to achieve transparency in military relations and not to obtain intelligence information. For example, to distinguish a tank from other types of vehicle, and not to find out the type of this tank and its armaments.

But Kyiv has found itself in a rather awkward situation. Since Ukraine, Russia, and Belarus have not ratified the Open Skies Treaty, this international document is not fully effective. But while Russia and Belarus are not in a great hurry to consider this Treaty in their Parliaments, Ukraine has refused to “open” its skies for the third time. During the last four years Europe together with the United States and Canada have been waiting for the three East Slavic countries to make this decision. Meanwhile, they conduct so-called training observation flights which are not very different from the real ones.

Ukrainian military men conducted training observation flights on board of their own An-30 over Romania, Slovakia, Poland, Germany, France, and even over the United States.

The Ministry of Defense says the results obtained during these flights are so productive that it would be harmful and unwise to reject the treaty. Moreover, carrying out these flights will require only 500,000 hryvnias over the next three years.

 

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