Four out of ten helicopters owned by the Interior Ministry and earlier leased by a private company have been returned to the ministry and are already operating in the anti-terrorist operation (ATO) zone in Ukraine's east, Ukrainian Interior Ministry Arsen Avakov has said.
“Everybody remembers that scandalous contract concluded by the previous government during [the presidency of Viktor] Yanukovych to transfer the Ukrainian helicopters of the armed forces, the National Guard, the then interior troops, to a private company. [It concerned] over 20 helicopters, including about 10 belonging to the Interior Ministry. We’ve had talks, and for almost one-and-a-half or even two months, the first four helicopters, which were returned upon agreement, have been working for the National Guard,” Avakov said in a video address posted on the ministry’s Web site on Sept. 22.
Avakov said that the contract under which the helicopters had been leased was “to put it mildly, very unattractive.”
“The first four fully equipped helicopters – with night vision equipment, protected by bullet-proof plating – are already working in the ATO zone. They withdraw our wounded servicemen, and quickly transport our troops. We had such an operation today, and thank God it’s not about the wounded, it’s about the transfer of a special task unit, with which we are now moving into Mariupol. These helicopters work day and night, and very importantly, they take our wounded soldiers from the front. As of today, up to about 100 people have been rushed to hospital in over a little more than a month-and-a-half of work,” Avakov said.
As reported, the then Ukrainian government envoy for anticorruption policy Tetiana Chornovol in June 2014 spoke in favor of the early cancellation of an agreement between the Ukrainian Defense and Interior Ministries and the Ukrainian Helicopters company regarding the renting out of 26 helicopters, so that the aircraft would be returned to the armed forces. In 2003, an agreement between Defense Ministry and this company was signed to rent out 16 helicopters of the institution for a token payment; 10 more helicopters were rented by the company from the Interior Ministry, she said. According to the agreement, in case of force-majeure circumstances, the company must return helicopters to the owners within 15 days, she added.
According to her, army possessed a mere ten operational military helicopters at that moment.
