KHANKALA, April 25 (AVN) - The federal troops command in the North Caucasus has learned that Chechen rebels started a hunt for Russia's KA-50 Black Shark helicopter, a competent source in the unified federal headquarters told the Military News Agency learned on Wednesday.
The rebel leadership promises USD1m to the people that down the helicopter (NATO codename Hokum) and produce a tape depicting its fall and remains, the source claimed. The project is financed by a foreign secret service that supplied Stinger portable air defence missile systems to Chechen extremists. It aims to undermine Russia's prestige on the global arms market and disrupt promising export supplies of KA-50.
Federal SU-25 Frogfoot attack planes flew five sorties in Chechnya on Tuesday. They inflicted strikes on earlier exposed targets in hard-to-reach mountainous areas of the breakaway republic. Army aviation helicopters accomplished about 30 combat missions. MI-24 Hind helicopters convoyed three federal military motorcades, two motorcades with civilians, a humanitarian cargo motorcade and a train. MI-8 Hip and MI-26 Halo military transport helicopters airlifted 80 people and over 5t of cargo.
Two AN-12 Cub planes transported 129 servicemen and 8t of technical cargo to Mozdok, main federal base in the North Caucasus, and back to central Russia.