Russia will furnish sorely needed helicopters to the EU's mission in Chad as well as to joint forces of the African Union and UN in Darfur, Russia's UN envoy said on Wednesday.
"Russia has excellent helicopters, which can be used in desert conditions," Russian Ambassador Vitaly Churkin told reporters.
"We intend to cooperate with the European Union mission in Chad, sending our helicopters and our crews with those helicopters," he said.
"As to Darfur, there have been some discussions," Churkin said, "so the most likely scenario in the use of Russian helicopters would be Russia supplying the helicopters with crews from other countries."
The 14-nation EU mission in Chad, known as EUFOR, began deploying 3,700 troops to Chad and the Central African Republic (CAR) last month after a delay caused by a rebel assault on the Chadian capital Ndjamena.
So far some 700 have been deployed as the force, mostly comprised of French troops, builds up its strength.
EUFOR is charged with beefing up security in Chad for a UN police mission as well as for more than 200,000 refugees from Sudan's strife-wracked Darfur region and people internally displaced by rebel insurgency in Chad and the northern Central African Republic.
The diplomat said the numbers of choppers to be sent to the hotspots "are not large, so we're talking about several helicopters."
He did not say how many nor did he provide details on whether they were tactical or transport aircraft.
The UN has for months been seeking six attack and 18 transport helicopters to support the planned 26,000-member UNAMID force that is starting to deploy in the violence-torn Darfur region of western Sudan.
The UN peacekeeping department says the helicopters are essential for UNAMID to operate in an area the size of France.
Countries have been slow to respond.
The UN has accepted four attack helicopters from Ethiopia and is discussing transport helicopters with Ethiopia and Bangladesh.
The lack of helicopters has been one of many problems slowing deployment of UNAMID, which is replacing an ineffectual 7,000-member AU force to try to end five years of violence involving Sudanese forces, allied militias and Darfur rebel groups. International experts say 200,000 people have been killed and more than 2 million made homeless by the Darfur violence. Khartoum says the actual figures are far lower.
Richard Williamson, the new US special envoy to Sudan, met UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Wednesday to speed the deployment.
"I think we're wrong to obsess about the helicopters. Our immediate obsession should be to try to get peacekeepers on the ground," Williamson said after the meeting.
There are more than 9,000 peacekeepers in Darfur. About 3,600 more, from Egypt and Ethiopia, were to arrive in May.
Williamson said on a visit to Sudan last week he had urged Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir, who wants UNAMID to consist mainly of African troops, to authorize 1,600 Thai and Nepalese troops the UN wants to send.
He said that in return, the US was willing to help African contingents to deploy.
Williamson also said several countries are forming "friends of UNAMID" to help with training and equipment.
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