Russia still waiting for Ukrainian Black Jacks
Lieutenant-General Mikhail Oparin, commanding officer of Russia's strategic air force, said he is flying to Engels on August 18 to inspect the preparedness of the local air base to receive strategic bombers from Ukraine, Interfax-Ukraine reports. Earlier, Colonel-General Anatoly Kornukov, Commander-in- Chief of the Russian Air Force, said Russia would have bought eight Tu-160 strategic bombers from Ukraine by the end of September. The Ukrainian Prime Minister Valery Pustovoitenko also spoke about Kyiv's intention to hand the Black Jacks over to Russia as payment for Russian gas debts.
So the Kyiv-Moscow deal is assuming much clearer outlines, and the Defense Minister of Ukraine General Oleksandr Kuzmuk seems to be, so to speak, ill-informed. During the recent visit of the U.S. Defense Secretary William Cohen, General Kuzmuk said Ukraine was not going to give away the Black Jacks as payment for its gas debts to Russia, and that the possibility of such a deal was only a journalist viewpoint. But we think the point is not in the minister of defense himself or some of his comments. Nowadays, all who take at least a faint interest in politics know that by far the most pivotal buzzword in the vocabulary of Ukrainian leaders is «multivectoredness.» We try to please East and West alike. So we could at first say to the (already former) Russian Premier Stepashin: «Yes, we are prepared to supply the bombers to Russia.» Then, receiving the U.S. Defense Secretary in the Crimean town of Partenit, we could also say: «We will not do so,» and then, after the overseas guest had left, we could again continue negotiations with Moscow, as if nothing had happened. I wonder what the Ukrainian leadership would say in reply to People's Deputy Yevhen Marchuk's question: what will happen if Kyiv is simultaneously visited by the leaders of both the USA and Russia?
Under the START-1 treaty, Kyiv must dispose of all of its 40 heavy bombers before December 2001. The Americans, who bear the expenses for the destruction of our Black Jacks, allow us to leave one or two of them as museum exhibits. At the moment the U.S. side, as the U.S. embassy press service told The Day , refrains from comment. The latter may emerge later, when Kyiv's and Moscow's statements turn into concrete agreements.
First Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine Oleksandr Chaly noted that handing over the bombers to Russia «would totally meet Ukraine's obligations under the offensive strategic arms limitation treaty.» According to the Ukrainian diplomat, there will be no complaints about Kyiv on the part of signatories to the treaty. The gas/bombers deal will be profitable for Kyiv, which hopes to draw up the plan of gas debt payment as soon as the end of summer. Firstly, eight Black Jacks cost at least $200 million, a fifth of the amount that official Kyiv recognizes as its debt to Russia (another $0.8 billion is owed to the neighboring state by commercial structures). Secondly, the maintenance of bombers, part of the USSR nuclear legacy, costs Ukraine over $1 million a year. Thirdly, Kyiv will hardly find a different buyer for the aircraft, more than half of which are admittedly unable to fulfill combat missions and need overhauling.
Lieutenant-General Mikhail Oparin, commanding officer of Russia's strategic air force, said he is flying to Engels on August 18 to inspect the preparedness of the local air base to receive strategic bombers from Ukraine, Interfax-Ukraine reports. Earlier, Colonel-General Anatoly Kornukov, Commander-in- Chief of the Russian Air Force, said Russia would have bought eight Tu-160 strategic bombers from Ukraine by the end of September. The Ukrainian Prime Minister Valery Pustovoitenko also spoke about Kyiv's intention to hand the Black Jacks over to Russia as payment for Russian gas debts.
So the Kyiv-Moscow deal is assuming much clearer outlines, and the Defense Minister of Ukraine General Oleksandr Kuzmuk seems to be, so to speak, ill-informed. During the recent visit of the U.S. Defense Secretary William Cohen, General Kuzmuk said Ukraine was not going to give away the Black Jacks as payment for its gas debts to Russia, and that the possibility of such a deal was only a journalist viewpoint. But we think the point is not in the minister of defense himself or some of his comments. Nowadays, all who take at least a faint interest in politics know that by far the most pivotal buzzword in the vocabulary of Ukrainian leaders is «multivectoredness.» We try to please East and West alike. So we could at first say to the (already former) Russian Premier Stepashin: «Yes, we are prepared to supply the bombers to Russia.» Then, receiving the U.S. Defense Secretary in the Crimean town of Partenit, we could also say: «We will not do so,» and then, after the overseas guest had left, we could again continue negotiations with Moscow, as if nothing had happened. I wonder what the Ukrainian leadership would say in reply to People's Deputy Yevhen Marchuk's question: what will happen if Kyiv is simultaneously visited by the leaders of both the USA and Russia?
Under the START-1 treaty, Kyiv must dispose of all of its 40 heavy bombers before December 2001. The Americans, who bear the expenses for the destruction of our Black Jacks, allow us to leave one or two of them as museum exhibits. At the moment the U.S. side, as the U.S. embassy press service told The Day , refrains from comment. The latter may emerge later, when Kyiv's and Moscow's statements turn into concrete agreements.
First Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine Oleksandr Chaly noted that handing over the bombers to Russia «would totally meet Ukraine's obligations under the offensive strategic arms limitation treaty.» According to the Ukrainian diplomat, there will be no complaints about Kyiv on the part of signatories to the treaty. The gas/bombers deal will be profitable for Kyiv, which hopes to draw up the plan of gas debt payment as soon as the end of summer. Firstly, eight Black Jacks cost at least $200 million, a fifth of the amount that official Kyiv recognizes as its debt to Russia (another $0.8 billion is owed to the neighboring state by commercial structures). Secondly, the maintenance of bombers, part of the USSR nuclear legacy, costs Ukraine over $1 million a year. Thirdly, Kyiv will hardly find a different buyer for the aircraft, more than half of which are admittedly unable to fulfill combat missions and need overhauling.
Newspaper output №:
№31, (1999)Section
Economy
