Royal Thai Army eyes Russian choppers

[Rik van der Vet]

The Thai army has decided to drop a project to repair helicopters built in the US and has approved the proposed purchase of three new helicopters from Russia, an army source said. The source said army commander Gen Anupong Paojinda had approved the proposed purchase of three MI-17 multi-role helicopters from Russia at a cost of about 950 baht million baht altogether or about 316 million baht each.

The army chief, at the same time, decided to cancel the 999-million-baht repair and maintenance programme for 15 Bell 212-type helicopters bought from the US, the source said.

According to the source, the army has more than 200 of the US-built helicopters

However, more than half of them can barely function now because they have been in use for more than 20 years.

The proposal has been submitted to Prime Minister Somchai Wongsawat, in his capacity as defence minister, the source said.

The source added it would be the first time that the army would use the Russian-built helicopters.

Until now, the army had used only US helicopters.

The armed forces previously were interested in buying military armaments from Russia.

The source said that when Sonthi Boonyaratkalin was coup leader and was in charge of the army in 2006, Russia offered to sell eight MI-17 type helicopters to the army for about 168 million baht each, lower than the present price quoted.

Earlier, the air force also bought six Gripen fighters from Sweden for about 19 billion baht.

When Thaksin Shinawatra was prime minister, he told the air force to procure SU-30 combat aircraft from Russia, but the air force showed no interest in buying them.

The procurement programme was stopped when the 2006 coup took place.

The same source said that before Samak Sundaravej was disqualified as prime minister by the Constitution Court, he approved a deal to buy 96 armoured personnel carriers costing 39 billion baht from the Ukraine.

The deal was initiated by Gen Sonthi.

However, the Office of the Auditor-General regarded the deal as non-transparent.

It raised questions about the quality of the vehicles and and alleged irregularities in the bidding process, in which Ukrainian NGV Enterprise failed to submit a tender but won the Defence Ministry contract.

The Samak government also approved a proposal to buy 15,307 shotguns from Israel worth about one billion baht.

The armament procurement programmes are part of a plan to modernise sections of the armed forces, which has been stalled for more than a decade since the 1997 financial crisis.

Source: BKKPost

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