Russia to send peacekeepers to Sudan

MOSCOW, June 16, 2005 (ITAR-TASS) — Russia will take part in the UN’s peacekeeping operation in Sudan and will send up to 50 servicemen to this East African country to work as liaison officers, military observers and staff at the UN mission’s headquarters, a high ranking representative of the Russian Defence Ministry told an ITAR-TASS correspondent today.

“In accordance with a decision taken by the country’s military leadership, we will send a helicopter group to Sudan to facilitate the work of the UN mission.

This will consist of four Mi-8MT military transport helicopters with about 120 crew members and technical personnel,” the representative told the agency.

He stressed that the timetable for the dispatch of the Russian helicopter group to Sudan “depends entirely on UN funding”. “Under an agreement with this organization, Russia will pay for the preparation of the helicopter group at Torzhok (in Tver Region).

The UN is to cover all the other overheads, including the cost of getting the group to Sudan aboard Russian planes and maintaining it whilst in the country. So far it has not provided any funds whatsoever,” the source said. “As far as this question is concerned, we will insist on the following formula: first money, then seats on planes,” he said.

The spokesman recalled that the Russian Defence Ministry is currently taking part in 12 UN peacekeeping operations, in which 102 servicemen as working as liaison officers and military observers (“blue berets”).

“If you add the 112 `blue helmets’ working as pilots and technicians for the Russian air group in Sierra Leone, this brings the total number of Russian military personnel involved in peacekeeping operations to 214,” ITAR-TASS’s source concluded.