An-124 planes used by French Defense Ministry for transportation to Sahel countries - source
MOSCOW. Dec 9 (Interfax-AVN) - Despite the Western sanctions, Russia has been honoring its contractual obligations to supply Antonov An-124 heavy transport aircraft for NATO countries, in particular France, a military-diplomatic source told Interfax-AVN on Tuesday.
"This type of aircraft, available to the Russian Defense Ministry's offshoot, the state company 'The 224th flight squadron' and the Volga-Dnepr airline company, were and are being used actively in the interests of our 'partners' to deliver military supplies. In particular, to Afghanistan and to the Sahel countries," the source said.
He was commenting on an incident in which Nigerian authorities had detained a Russian An-124 aircraft which was to deliver supplies for French Military Operation Barkhan in the Sahel zone.
"Since the launch of French Military Operation Serval in early 2013 to free Northern Mali from three jihadist movements, which had seized that area, Russia has been actively involved in supplying the French military with everything necessary," the source said.
"Joint work has continued against all odds to this day, i.e. after the sanctions were introduced against Russia and Operation Serval was reformatted into regional Operation Barkhan," the source said.
According to Western open sources, in 2009 alone the French Defense Ministry paid 30 million euro to Volga-Dnepr and Ukraine's Antonov Design Bureau for the use of An-124s under NATO's Strategic Airlift Interim Solution (SALIS) program. On NATO's part, the services of the two companies were used in total by 18 member states.
The Russian An-124 "Ruslan" aircraft detained in Kano (Nigeria) on December 6 was flying from Banga (Central African Republic) to N'Djamena (Chad) to deliver supplies for Operation Barkhan. On the evening of December 8 it flew out of Kano. According to some reports, it is owned by "The 224th flight squadron." The Russian Defense Ministry has neither denied, nor confirmed this information.
According to open sources, 10% in "The 224th flight squadron" is owned by the state-company, "Aviaremont," another offshoot of the Russian Defense Ministry.