Ukraine's Ukroboronpromom today announced that it had delivered the eighth and last batch of 5 repaired & upgraded An-32RE aircraft to the Indian Air Force, completing the $400 million deal. Fears that India's fleet was missing -- or worse -- emerged last year at the peak of the Ukraininan conflict, heightened by the shooting down of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 in July 2014. The Ukrainian military-industrial complex had taken a heavy battering at the time, so it was only expected that they would use program completion to backhand those reports. Here's the operative part from the official Ukrainian press release today:
Interestingly Ukraine officially makes it a point to address recent reports of unreliability & An-32s going missing! pic.twitter.com/mQVpysAouw
— Livefist (@livefist) November 20, 2015
And with that, the souped up tactical 'work-horse' transports are back in Indian hands. More details on the new birds soon. And, as always, additional photos & content on Livefist's Facebook page.