Russian technicians may have deliberately damaged MiG-29 fighter jets that were in service with the Slovak army and are now being transferred to Ukraine, Defence Minister Jaroslav Nad was quoted by Euractiv.
MiG-29 fighters are Soviet-made twin-engine aircraft that were in service with the Slovak army after the split of Czechoslovakia in 1993. They were recently transferred to Ukraine, and the Slovak army has not used them since August 2022.
"They could fly, but that doesn't mean they were capable of combat. The Ukrainians came to Slovakia a week before they were due to depart, brought spare parts and inspected the planes," the minister explained after the opposition criticised the government for refusing to give up the planes.
Nagy suggested that the malfunctions in the fighter jets may have been deliberately caused by Russian technicians who were present at the Sliac airbase in Slovakia until last year.
"Even the police were investigating this based on our suspicions. There were parts of the aircraft's engines that Slovak technicians had access to, and there were parts that only Russian technicians had access to. The defects appeared only in the parts that the Russians had access to," Nad said.
Although the investigation did not prove intent, the Ministry of Defence " felt a loss of confidence in the Russian technicians at Sliač because mistakes kept appearing in places only they could get to ".
Lt-Gen Lubomir Svoboda, a former high-ranking pilot, also suggested that the Russians deliberately damaged the aircraft.
"We took over an engine from them that was supposed to last 350 hours. And in the end, it only flew 70 hours. What can we make of that? Maybe there was poor workmanship, let’s call it that. I don't know," he said in an interview with Dennik N.
Slovakia, along with Poland, agreed to provide Ukrainians with Soviet-made fighter jets. Slovakia handed over four MiG-29s in March.