As promised, we’re continuing the story about the Defense Ministry plane in the Seychelles.
It’s quite amusing how, after a week of silence, Shoigu’s ministry started responding to us with posts by paid bloggers and reports from LifeNews. http://lifenews.ru/news/133927 http://katyushka48.livejournal.com/12542.html http://kril-org.livejournal.com/4032252.html
The general refrain of the response is: AAAAA!!! You got everything wrong. This isn’t corruption at all. It wasn’t generals flying on Shoigu’s plane to party in the Seychelles! It was oligarch-politician Prokhorov using Shoigu’s plane to fly girls to his party (sometimes the word "girls" is replaced with more colorful epithets). As proof, they cite "according to LifeNews" and these "photos of girls."
What’s especially magnificent is that these posts usually appear sandwiched between posts like "We’ll show the Americans" (using a Russian slur for Americans), "Forward, Russia," "Glory to our brave military," and "I’ll wrap myself in a St. George ribbon" (a Russian military-patriotic symbol).
Sorry, but I find it hard to imagine that among those same "Americans," the defense minister’s plane is used to fly girls to parties in the Seychelles. It’s hard to see that as a source of pride for the armed forces. Maybe that’s how things work in the Albanian military, but we are a nuclear-armed country that claims global leadership. You can’t just go around giving girls rides on the Defense Minister’s plane.
So. No one is disputing anymore that we were right, and that the flight was unofficial. What remains open is the question of who was on board. Generals? Girls? The generals’ girls? Female generals? Another open question is whether it was legal for girls and assorted generals to be flying on this plane.
Let’s move on to a review of some facts we established after publishing the investigation.
Among the centrally subordinated units of the Russian Armed Forces, there is the 800th Air Base (military unit 15565), based at Chkalovsky. It was previously the 8th Special Purpose Aviation Division, which in 2009 became the 6991st Air Base, and in 2010 became the 800th Air Base. The 800th Air Base includes the 223rd Flight Detachment, which is allowed to lease out some of the aircraft belonging to the base. Through the 223rd Flight Detachment, the 800th Air Base operates commercial flights under the code ЦХД (CHD). Military flights operate under the code РФФ (RFF) — Russian Armed Forces.
So yes, agreed: some aircraft really can be used for commercial flights.
2. It is known for certain that aircraft RA-85155 was transferred to the Ministry of Defense in April 2010 and is intended for the Defense Minister. A distinctive feature of this particular aircraft is the inscription on its livery — Russian Air Force — which by itself indicates the aircraft’s military status.
Moreover, the aircraft is equipped with flight-navigation equipment and special communications systems meeting the needs of the Russian Ministry of Defense.
3. Notably, after the publication, FlightRadar removed all of the scant data it had on the aircraft, which is highly unusual. Most likely this was done at the military’s request.
Could the 223rd Flight Detachment have been flying generals and girls around in violation of the law? At the very least, they have been caught doing similar things before. We have a 1997–1998 Accounts Chamber report on its audit of the 8th Special Purpose Aviation Division, and the 223rd Flight Detachment in particular, and it contains a full bouquet of violations. The Accounts Chamber audited the 223rd Flight Detachment twice. The materials from the 1998–1999 audit shed light on a whole range of violations: embezzlement, inefficient use of aircraft — transporting favored sports teams, and so on.
And, surprise, those violations match exactly what we are accusing the Defense Ministry of today. The same misuse, the same waste of funds, and so on. Another audit was conducted in 2013. The Accounts Chamber reported its results in December, but did not publish the audit materials themselves. We are confident that this document contains answers to many important questions. That is why we demand publication of these materials. We have every right to know how taxpayers’ money is being used.
What does it take to charter an aircraft from the 223rd Flight Detachment?
If the 223rd Flight Detachment is going to send one of its aircraft somewhere, it has to coordinate with air traffic control, arrange airfield services, crew support, and so on — all of this falls under the organization and support of air transportation for passengers, baggage, and cargo. The contract for this is concluded through the state procurement system.
We called the 223rd Flight Detachment to charter aircraft RA-85155 specifically, and were referred to an agent — a company called Femida. In other words, it is Femida that handles chartering out this aircraft. However, on Femida’s own website we found not only no listing for this specific aircraft, but no Tu-154M aircraft at all. And at this point, the list of aircraft has been removed from the site entirely. Notably, the 223rd Flight Detachment shut down its site altogether after the post. Nevertheless, in response to an official media inquiry, Femida said that during the specified dates this aircraft carried 40 passengers and 3 metric tons of stage equipment, and suggested requesting the passenger list from Vnukovo-3.
Despite that brisk reply, in the lists of aircraft transferred to Femida’s management, *we did not find aircraft RA-85155__.* And the opposite would have been strange — this is the Minister’s plane, after all***.***
LifeNews claims that Andrei Makarevich was on this plane, to which Znak.com quite reasonably decided to ask Makarevich whether the trip had in fact taken place. Andrei Makarevich confirmed that he spent the May holidays in the Seychelles. "Yes, we flew there, but not on the plane in question — we took a regular scheduled flight," he said. "Mikhail was celebrating his birthday (Prokhorov turned 49 on May 3 — editor’s note). I can’t say what plane Prokhorov arrived on, because when we got there, he was already there." So Makarevich was not flying with the girls-generals.
So, let us record the interim stage of our investigation. We have two forks in the road: a) generals or girls; b) legal or illegal. That gives four possible combinations, but the only one acceptable to us is "generals legally." "Generals illegally" and "girls illegally" mean criminal liability. "Girls legally" — well, that becomes a political question about the country’s prestige and a question about the quality of the security services’ work.
The questions we are now demanding answers to from Minister Shoigu are these: On what grounds is an aircraft equipped with flight-navigation equipment and special communications systems meeting the needs of the Russian Ministry of Defense being leased out to transport girls (if that is who they were)? Does this not threaten Russia’s security? Could such flights, for example, serve as cover for installing espionage equipment? Are there legal grounds for leasing out this particular aircraft at all? Based on everything set out above, we conclude that there are no such grounds. If the minister’s plane is being commercially leased without legal grounds, then who is pocketing the money from that lease?
We will keep digging.
And let me answer the obvious question right away: why are you so hung up on this plane? Aren’t there other problems? Yes, there are other problems, but absurd as it may sound, when the minister’s plane is used to fly chicks to the beach, that is a sign of such deep disorder in the country that this little episode becomes a system-defining problem. It is a serious defect in our state. We want Defense Ministry planes to carry generals, officers, soldiers, and Gatling guns. Let commercial aviation carry the girls.