OPINION: Russian aircraft hidden in Trinidad’s Piarco Airport
By Jolly Green
Volga-Dnepr Airlines LLC is an airline based in Ulyanovsk, Russia. It specializes in providing air charter services by operating a unique fleet of twelve Antonov An-124 (largest production cargo aircraft), five Boeing 747-8F and five IL-76TD-90VD (Stage IV) ramp all-cargo aircraft certified for global operations. It is a world leader in the global market for the movement of oversize, unique and heavy air cargo.
Ref:
"Volga-Dnepr and the AN-124-100". Moscow Defense Brief.
Centre for Analysis of Strategies and Technologies (1 (15) / 2009).
Its
main base is Ulyanovsk Vostochny Airport (ULY), Ulyanovsk and it has
a hub at Krasnoyarsk Yemelyanovo Airport (KJA), Krasnoyarsk.
It’s
rather a strange company operating in the most outlandish
circumstances for an airline owned by Russians and based in Russia.
Besides working for Russian military and Russian arms companies. It
also at one time did transport work for Nato and the US and British
governments and military.
According
to Moscow Defense Brief, the company has over the past 18 years
transported gigantic excavators and yachts, missile launchers,
airplanes and helicopters, elephants and whales, entire
mini-factories and power plants, the latest release of Beaujolais
Nouveau wine, and unique museum collections. Deliveries of equipment
for the heavy machine building, oil and gas, and aerospace sectors
are most in demand. Ref: ditto.
In
2008, Volga-Dnepr delivered Kibo, the Japanese Experiment Module for
the International Space Station (ISS), from Japan to the Kennedy
Space Center in Florida. It is the largest single ISS module.
The
US military blacklisted Volga-Dnepr for delivering weapons on behalf
of Rosoboronexport to Vietnam in December 2014.
According
to a release by Washington, this was the Russian air cargo carrier
that paid former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn more than
$11,000 and had been blacklisted without warning by the Pentagon
months before Flynn became Donald Trump’s top campaign adviser on
military matters.
Documents
released by Democrats on the House Committee on Oversight and
Government Reform omitted an essential piece of information: At the
time that the U.S. affiliate of Russian cargo airline Volga-Dnepr
paid Flynn $11,250 in August 2015, the Russian company had been
frozen out by the Pentagon since February that year, and the airline
claimed it was trying to learn why.
Four
months after Flynn was paid for the Volga-Dnepr speech, Flynn was
seated next to Russian President Vladimir Putin at a dinner in Moscow
paid for by the RT news network. RT paid Flynn and his speakers’
bureau more than $45,000, according to the documents.
“Unsuitable
for use,” is how a U.S. Transportation Command (USTRANSCOM) email
in May 2015 characterized the air cargo carrier Volga-Dnepr.
Volga-Dnepr
in December 2014 ferried two Su-30MK2 attack aircraft to Da Nang,
Vietnam, on behalf of Russian arms exporter Rosoboronexport. JSC
Rosoboronexport is the sole state intermediary agency for Russia's
exports/imports of Russian Arms and Military Equipment.
State
Department cables published by the WikiLeaks website show that
Volga-Dnepr has long been both a partner and a worry for the U.S.
military.
The
cargo airline had worked for the United Nations, as well. However, it
was suspended from a list of approved vendors in 2007 after two
Russian U.N. officials were prosecuted for steering contracts to the
airline in exchange for bribes.
In
a confidential Nov. 17, 2007, cable to headquarters, a diplomat in
the U.S. embassy in Berlin reported that the German government had
blocked a Russian arms shipment that stopped on its way to Venezuela.
The cable said the Germans had acted on a tip from the Portuguese
embassy, which had warned that Russian rockets were being sent to
Venezuela, stopping first in the German city of Leipzig. The
shipment, carried by Volga-Dnepr, was on behalf of Rosoboronexport.
The
US imposed new sanctions on Russian oligarchs, including President
Vladimir Putin’s son-in-law, and several entities accused of
supporting and profiting from the Russian government’s efforts to
undermine western democracies.
The
measures announced by the Treasury Department were also aimed at 17
senior Russian government officials. The state-owned Russian weapons
trading company, Rosoboronexport, which has long-standing ties to
Syria and its subsidiary, Russian Financial Corporation Bank were
also targeted under new sanctions.
“The
Russian government operates for the disproportionate benefit of
oligarchs and government elites," US Treasury Secretary Steven
T. Mnuchin said as he announced the new set of sanctions against
Russia.
It
is believed Putin and his family and friends are in some way involved
with Rosoboronexport, perhaps even owning it.
The
US action targeted Russian oligarchs including Kirill Shamalov, who
married Putin’s daughter and has amassed a fortune since married in
February 2013; Oleg Deripaska, a senior Russian official who has been
investigated for money laundering; and Suleiman Kerimov, who
allegedly brought millions of Euros into France in suitcases,
according to the Treasury Department. The US sanctions were said to
be a step by the US against Russia following the poisoning of a
former Russian spy in England, the interference in the US 2016
election and a cyber-attack. In all the US designated seven Russian
oligarchs and 12 companies they own or control, 17 senior Russian
government officials, and a state-owned Russian weapons trading
company and its subsidiary, a Russian bank.
So
why am I telling the readers in the Caribbean and Americas about all
this interwoven stuff regarding Putin's pet Volga-Dnepr Airlines LLC
the Russian Airline who specializes in carrying missile launchers and
Russian Arms and equipment?
Quite
simple I am a little worried that Trinidad and Tobago may well have
US sanctions put on them. When the US government finds out that they
have allowed a Russian plane owned by Volga Dnepr Cargo Airlines to
hide in a hangar in the old part of Piarco airport for over a month
they will be madder than hell.
A
Trinidad Immigration official speaking without official permission
said: “It’s highly unusual for an airplane to remain so long at
Piarco.”
These
aircraft are used for cargo and transportation of heavy equipment.
It’s well known that Trinidad and Tobago’s prime minister
sympathizes with Nicolas Maduro. However, what are these specialist
aircraft doing being hidden at Piaca with the full knowledge of the
Prime Minister? Dr. Keith Christopher Rowley MP is the current Prime
Minister of Trinidad and Tobago, in office since September 2015.
The
crew is staying at the Marriot Hotel in Port-of-Spain. Having been
granted permission to wait for an extended period. According to crew
member Mikhail Miniakov, one of the pilots who can speak English,
they stopped off in “Trinidad for a fuel stop and crew rest and
were awaiting instructions from their employers in Russia as to their
next destination.”
Members
of the crew besides Miniakov, are Dmitry Ageev a pilot, Viacheslav
Lvov a navigator and five engineers; Pavel Popovich, Valery Sotnikov,
Nikolai Kosovo, Alexander Erofeev and Dmitri Losenko.
The
same cargo plane previously visited Piarco Airport in 2011, May 2015
and August 2017.
Are
they waiting to collect and repossess secret Russian heavy military
equipment if Maduro has to run?
Mikhail
Miniakov shrugs his shoulders and suddenly has a problem
understanding, interview over.
See here the same aircraft landing in 2013 and read the comments: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HlULlo5bvc8
Jolly Green, looking out at the Maduro collaborators everywhere
END
DISCLAMER: The opinion, belief and viewpoint expressed by the author do not necessarily reflect the opinion, belief and viewpoint of iNews Cayman/ieyenews.com or official policies of iNews Cayman/ieyenews.com
Published February 26, 2019
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