Russians deny gunship claims

REPORTS that the National Guard’s assault choppers are not airworthy are entirely false, the Embassy of the Russian Federation said yesterday.

The embassy issued a rebuttal after press reports last week that the 10 Russian-made gunships sat idly in hangars because of problems with service and parts.

It was also said that the flight manuals were in the Russian language, and that training was done with a dictionary in hand.

“The allegations contained in the above mentioned articles that the flight manual and the technical and operational documentations supplied… were in the Russian language have nothing to do with the real situation,” read the statement from the embassy.

“In compliance with the contract… all the documentation was supplied in the English language. Besides, all the inscriptions in the cockpit of the helicopters were in English.”

Moreover, the embassy said, the manufacturer had concluded a supplementary contract for the upgrade and overhaul of the gunships, and the contract was being strictly implemented.

According to the embassy, claims that the choppers could not bank up to 45° are inaccurate and “obviously have been purposely and with ill-intent made to discredit one of the best combat helicopters in the world, Russian military aviation equipment in general, and to harm Cypriot-Russian relations in the field of military and technical co-operation.

“We have no information that some Cypriot pilots refused to fly… as alleged in the said articles. Such allegations may have no other purpose than to affect negatively the morale of Cypriot flight personnel.”

The Russian-made Mi-35 assault helicopters were first brought to Cyprus in 2001, in total secrecy. The purchase was unveiled a year later.

The Mi-35 is a low-capacity troop transport operated from 1976 by the Soviet Air Force, its successors, and over 30 other nations.

The gunship has seen action in a number of conflicts, including the Cambodian-Vietnamese War of 1978, the ten-year Soviet War in Afghanistan, the Iran-Iraq War and the Kosovo War.

The Cyprus Mail is the only English-language daily newspaper published in Cyprus. It was established in 1945 and today, with its popular and widely-read website, the Cyprus Mail is among the most trusted news sites in Cyprus. The newspaper is not affiliated with any political parties and has always striven to maintain its independence. Over the past 70-plus years, the Cyprus Mail, with a small dedicated team, has covered momentous events in Cyprus’ modern history, chronicling the last gasps of British colonial rule, Cyprus’ truncated independence, the coup and Turkish invasion, and the decades of negotiations to stitch the divided island back together, plus a myriad of scandals, murders, and human interests stories that capture the island and its -people. Observers describe it as politically conservative.