MOSCOW. May 19 (Interfax-AVN) - Uzbekistan has removed the ban on the use of its airspace for transit flights of Russian military cargo planes, a competent source in the Russian Defense Ministry told Interfax-Military News Agency on Monday.
"A temporary ban on transit flights of Russian military cargo planes over Uzbekistan was imposed after Russia delayed the payment for the use of Uzbek airspace due to May Day and Victory Day holidays. The money has been transferred by now, and Russian military transport aviation planes are again allowed to fly over Uzbekistan starting from Monday evening," the source in the Defense Ministry's financial and economic directorate said.
A source in the Russian Defense Ministry earlier told Interfax-AVN that the Uzbek authorities had banned the transit of Russian military cargo planes. Thus, IL-76 Candid planes en route from the Chkalovsky airfield in the Moscow region to Dushanbe had to fly longer via Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, which complicated the provisioning of the Russian military group in Tajikistan and required more fuel.