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Rockets and People
with the support of the Air Force Command, obtained the permission of the
Russian government for a flight by two Su-30 fighters from Moscow to the U.S.
The flight range of the fighters was to have been ensured by in-flight refueling
using an Il-78 tanker airplane. This would not have been a sensation for the
twenty-first century, but proof of the fact that Russia still had aircraft technology
and pilots who were prepared to take risks not for the sake of money and fame,
but for the prestige of their country.
But it turned out that such a flight could be spoiled in our time for ridiculous
reasons. The U.S. government did not object to three Russian military aircraft
flying into its territory, but it could not guarantee the return of these aircraft to
Russia. It turns out that the aircraft could be seized and handed over to a certain
Swiss company called Noga. Since 1992, the Russian government had owed this
company either $50 million or $70 million for the delivery of baby food. The
governments in Russia had changed, and each one had verbally recognized the
laws of the free market. But the debt, which exceeded $100 million when interest
was factored in, had not been repaid because the budget did not contain a debit
item to indemnify losses to companies that had suffered from the looting of budgetary
money—plunder which had gone unpunished. According to the decision
of an international court of arbitration, Noga was granted the right to seize
Russian state property to recoup its losses if this property was on the territory of
a country that recognized the international arbitration decision.Thus, according to
the laws of 2002, if two Su-30 fighters and an Il-78 tanker flew safely over the
Arctic to the United States, they would be confiscated and handed over to the
ownership of a baby food company. From the great and heroic to the ridiculous
required not a single step, but sixty-five years!
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