“If you want a pretty professional but slightly cowboyish outfit that doesn’t mind flying into war zones, doesn’t mind taking off from unsurfaced runways, then Vertikal-T now seems to be the front runner,” he said.
These companies generally provide legitimate air transport services, but often draw the wrong kind of publicity.
Vertikal-T was left red-faced in Sudan after authorities accused it of dropping arms to rebels, an allegation the company denied.
A NATO spokesman declined to provide information on individual companies, but said it was “important to bear in mind the great demands placed on our countries’ forces ... Missions carried out by the individual nations, the United Nations and the European Union involve calling on nations’ assets, both manpower and equipment.”
NATO uses Russian aircraft in two main ways. At one end of the scale, Russian choppers take on simple supply missions. At the other end, massive Russian-owned Antonov planes take off from distant air bases bound for the deserts of Afghanistan with heavy and sometimes classified freight.
RSS