Defense Minister Yaroslav Nagy said that Russian technicians could deliberately sabotage the operation of Soviet-made MiG-29 fighters belonging to the Slovak army.
The malfunctions could have been deliberately caused by Russian technicians who were stationed at the Sliach Air Base in Slovakia until last year, Nye suggested in the comments. publication “Euractive”.
MiG-29 fighters are Soviet-made twin-engine aircraft that were in the Slovak army as a legacy of the split of Czechoslovakia in 1993. They were recently transferred to Ukraine, and the Slovak army has not used them since then.
“Even the police investigated it based on our suspicions. There were parts in the aircraft engines that Slovak technicians had access to, and there were parts that only Russian technicians had access to. Defects appeared only in those parts to which the Russians turned,” said the minister.
“They could fly, but that doesn’t mean they were capable of fighting either. The Ukrainians came to Slovakia a week before the departure, brought spare parts and inspected the planes,” he explained. Yaroslav Nagy.
Although the investigation did not prove intent, the Ministry of Defense “felt a loss of confidence in the Russian technicians at Sliach, because errors continued to appear in places that only they could reach,” the minister added.
Lieutenant General Lubomyr Svobodaa former top-ranking pilot, also suggested that the Russians had deliberately damaged the planes.
“We took an engine from them that was supposed to work for 350 hours. And as a result flew only 70 hours. What can we make of it? Maybe there was shoddy work, let’s put it that way. I don’t know,” he said in an interview with Denník N.
The publication “Evraktiv” reminds that the embassy of the Russian Federation exploded with sharp criticism and statements about the alleged “escalacyyu” at the front precisely after Slovakia’s decision to transfer aircraft to Ukraine.
Olga SKOTNIKOVA
