Ukraine Offers Russia Bombers To Pay Part Of Debt
KIEV, Jul 28, 1999 -- (Reuters) Ukraine has offered to pay part of its energy debts to Russia with 10 strategic heavy bombers, Interfax-Ukraine news agency said on Tuesday.
It quoted Defense Minister Olexander Kuzmuk as saying 10 of the 44 Tupolev-160 and Tupolev-95 bombers owned by Ukraine could be transferred to Russia. Kuzmuk said each plane would count for more than $25 million of debt, but did not give an exact figure.
Russian Prime Minister Sergei Stepashin failed to fully resolve the issue of Ukraine's estimated $1.8 billion debt to Russia during a visit to Kiev earlier this month.
He said a barter deal had been hindered by difficulties in establishing the worth of goods to be exchanged but that the two sides hoped to reach a deal in August.
Stepashin said Ukraine owed $1.8 billion for Russian natural gas supplies. Ukrainian estimates have put the figure owed to Russian gas monopoly Gazprom at closer to $1 billion.
It would not be the first time the cash-strapped Ukrainian government has proposed to sell the bombers to Russia, although negotiations have to date been unsuccessful.
Itar-Tass news agency quoted Russia's minister for relations with the Commonwealth of Independent States, Leonid Drachevsky, as saying on Tuesday that Moscow was ready to discuss Kiev's offer.
The 19 Tu-160 "Blackjack" bombers and 25 Tu-95 planes can all carry nuclear bombs and missiles over a long range, but have not flown since the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991. They are based at Uzin and Pryluky in Ukraine.
In line with the 1991 START-1 nuclear disarmament treaty -- confirmed by the United States, Russia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan and Belarus after the collapse of the Soviet Union -- Ukraine must rid itself of all nuclear bombing capacity by 2001, a process it started last November.
The United States has promised Ukraine it will cover the $8 million price tag for destroying the bombers, but Kiev says some are still flight-worthy and that it hopes to earn more from their sale. It also wants to retain some for civilian purposes.
The debt question is one of the problems still dogging ties between the two most populous ex-Soviet republics, even though Ukraine and Russia have signed a friendship treaty intended to end years of bickering.
Some tensions also linger over the status of Ukraine's Crimean port of Sevastopol and the Black Sea Fleet. ((c) 1999 Reuters)
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