{"id":26629,"date":"2024-04-29T02:51:07","date_gmt":"2024-04-29T07:51:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/?p=26629"},"modified":"2024-04-29T02:51:15","modified_gmt":"2024-04-29T07:51:15","slug":"us-buys-old-warplanes-from-former-soviet-republic-media","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/?p=26629","title":{"rendered":"US buys old warplanes from former Soviet republic \u2013 media"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">The US government has reportedly purchased most of the retired Soviet-era warplanes sold off in a recent auction by Kazakhstan, possibly for use by Kiev\u2019s forces in the Russia-Ukraine conflict.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">Washington was the winning bidder for 81 of the 117 aircraft, buying them&nbsp;\u201cthrough offshore entities\u201d&nbsp;for a combined $1.5 million, the&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.kyivpost.com\/post\/31780\">Kiev Post<\/a>&nbsp;reported on Sunday. The report didn\u2019t give a breakdown of how many planes of each type were acquired, but it said the purchase included MiG-29 fighter jets, MiG-27 fighter bombers and Su-24 bombers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">Kazakhstan also offered MiG-31 interceptors in the auction. All of the aircraft were listed as being in&nbsp;\u201cunusable condition,\u201d&nbsp;according to the report, and the costs of modernizing them were deemed economically impractical. The warplanes, which were built in the 1970s and 1980s, were retired under the Kazakh military\u2019s modernization program.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">The average unit cost paid by the US was less than $19,000. In fact, the entire fleet of 81 jets cost only about as much as ten AGM-114 Hellfire missiles, one of the air-to-surface munitions commonly used by US drones and warplanes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">US officials haven\u2019t declared how the retired Kazakh planes will be used, the Kiev Post said.&nbsp;\u201cSpeculation has grown that \u2013 as the aircraft types are all in service with Ukraine \u2013 it is likely they will eventually be transferred to Kiev.\u201d&nbsp;If that happens, the newspaper added, Ukrainian forces will likely disassemble the aircraft for spare parts or use them as decoys at airfields.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">Kazakhstan, which is historically a Russian ally, has increasingly engaged with Western nations since the Ukraine crisis began in February 2022. Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev hosted UK Foreign Minister David Cameron\u2019s visit to Astana earlier this month. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken traveled to Astana last year for talks with Central Asian leaders.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.rt.com\/news\/596732-us-buys-kazakh-warplanes\/https:\/\/www.rt.com\/news\/596732-us-buys-kazakh-warplanes\/\">rt<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The US government has reportedly purchased most of the retired Soviet-era warplanes sold off in a recent auction by Kazakhstan, possibly for use by Kiev\u2019s forces in the Russia-Ukraine conflict. Washington was the winning bidder for 81 of the 117 aircraft, buying them&nbsp;\u201cthrough offshore entities\u201d&nbsp;for a combined $1.5 million, the&nbsp;Kiev Post&nbsp;reported on Sunday. The report [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":26630,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1153],"tags":[5764,28110,24810,28109,6560,21056],"class_list":["post-26629","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-military","tag-aircraft","tag-former-soviet-republic","tag-kazakhstan","tag-old-fighters","tag-purchase","tag-usa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26629","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=26629"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26629\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26631,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26629\/revisions\/26631"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/26630"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=26629"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=26629"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=26629"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}