Some discrepancy about the actual finances involved but the news remains consistent throughout:
by BBC News Online’s Alexander Koliandre
Polish air forces have got a real bargain – they have purchased 23
Soviet-made light tactical fighters MiG29 Fulcrum for just one Euro. A new
Fulcrum costs around $25m and is considered to be one of the best modern
fighters. Warsaw got them, as Polish Defence Minister Jerzy Szmajdzinski put
it, for “a notorious Euro”. Under the current law, Poland was obliged to pay
for the planes, albeit a symbolic price.
Two years ago Germany proposed that Poland should get the planes along with
120 second-hand Leopard tanks as a goodwill gesture to help the Polish army
meet Nato technical standards. Under the deal, Warsaw will get the fighters
which were inherited from East Germany after unification. In the early 1990s
those MiGs were considered by Germany’s airforce Luftwaffe as the only
German Democratic Republic fighters worth upgrading.
Although the purchase can hardly be considered as an expensive one, it may
bring some badly needed cash to the military industries in Poland and
Russia. When Poland joined Nato, its army needed to catch up with the
alliance’s technical standards. The bulk of Polish military equipment was
inherited from the times of the Warsaw Pact and the cost of upgrading it all
totals hundreds of millions of dollars. Only 11 planes of Germany’s 23, meet
all the NATO requirements. The rest needs to be upgraded, mainly by
installing new radars and other electronic equipment. Analysts in both
Moscow and in Warsaw say the cost of upgrading exceeds $20m. But it is
unclear who will get the contract.
According to Gazeta Wyborcza, a Polish daily newspaper, the most probable
candidate for the contract is a military aircraft plant, based in Bydgoszcz
in Northern Poland. It is the country’s only plant able to do the job, and
it has already updated Poland’s MiG29s and Su22 bombers. Jan Zuk, the
plant’s head, sounded quite upbeat when asked about the future of the
contract. Warsaw is thought to be keen to give the contract to a local
company, but largely improved relationships with Russia might help Russian
Aircraft Corporation MiG to get the job.
While Moscow was rather unhappy to see the former allies flocking to Nato,
the transition was a source of hard currency in the mid-nineties for
Russia’s military industry. Last year MiG Corporation signed a deal worth
$40m with Hungary for upgrading its jets and is considered to be the
favourite in a similar Bulgarian tender. If the upgrade goes ahead, Poland’s
MiG’s might be the last East European ones. The plane is praised by pilots
for its resilience and good flying qualities, but its radars and some
electronic equipment are thought to be less sophisticated than Western ones.
Warsaw got its first 12 MiG29s during the last years of the Soviet Union and
bought another 10 in Czech Republic in 1995. The upgraded MiGs are thought
to be in service in Poland until 2015. Luftwaffe was going to get rid of the
planes anyway and offering them to Poland has helped the country to cope
with its commitments. Poland committed itself to having 160 modern fighters
when it joined Nato in 1999. It is obliged to have 16 new multipurpose
fighters ready for Nato operations by 2003, and 60 by 2006. Due to a
permanent budget shortage, Warsaw was forced to delay an aircraft tender
that drew interest from Lockheed Martin, a British-Swedish consortium of BAE
Systems and Saab, and France’s Dassault. The result of the tender – worth
around $3bn – is expected in mid-August.
Meanwhile the MiG Corporation offered to export the new MiG29M2, thought to
be rather attractive for potential buyers considering its low price and
overall good quality.
“Germany Divides Soviet Military Might with Poland” (extract)
Poland, who entered NATO in 1999, is fielding only ordinary MiG-29 fighters
at the present time which correspond to the requirements of NATO (Warsaw
obtained another 10 non re-equipped MiG-29 in the Czech Republic in exchange
for 11 W-3 Sokol helicopters for the 12 adapted MiG-29 fighters it had since
the time of the existence of the Warsaw pact).
Warsaw adopted Berlin’s proposal for the purchase of the second-hand 23
MiG-29 fighters in the Luftwaffe’s inventory, but fully equipped according
to NATO standards, and also the airfield equipment and the fighters’
armament. Warsaw has obligated itself to pay Berlin 120 million Zlotys (30
million dollars). Afterwards a tender will be announced for the purchase of
new combat fighters. But the deliveries of the new aeroplane can begin not
earlier than 2006.
Besides Russia, in whose air force nearly 400 MiG-29 serve, five countries
of the CIS have almost that very same number of these fighters (Ukraine –
237, Belorussia – 82, Uzbekistan – 36, Kazakhstan and Turkmeniya – 22
airplanes each). Besides this, 135 MiG-29 fly in the skies of Europe, of
which they belong to Hungary (28), Germany (23), Bulgaria (22), Poland (22),
Slovakia (15), Yugoslavia (13 and Rumania (12).
As still larger number of MiG-29 are flying in the skies of Asia (almost
170), of which 66 are in the Indian air force inventory, 35 – Iran, 30 – the
Korean People’s Democratic Republic, 20 – Syria, 17 – Malaysia, 15 – Iraq
and 4 – Yemen. Besides this there are 16 MiG-29 in the Peruvian air force
inventory and 12 – Cuba.
Even the USA has MiG-29: In 1997, the Pentagon bought 21 aircraft for 40
million dollars from Moldova. Last year, RSK MiG concluded contracts
totaling 900 million dollars for deliveries this year of MiG-29 for
Bangladesh, Vietnam, Yemen, Myanmar and Sudan.
Source: 30.01.02, Kommersant
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Steve Rush Touchdown-News
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January 31, 2002 at 6:22 pm