Nations that use ageing Soviet equipment?

I wonder if any nation bought a whole bunch of retro equipment and fitted itself out with a retro 60-70's soviet state era defence force. Walmart of old russian gear.

Was it the shipping of this stuff when the Somali pirates captured a ship full of old russian gear? MV Faina?
 
Ukraine is well-known as a supplier to the poorer nations globally. Primary customers for stuff from that list - for larger items anyway - were Cambodia, Chad, DR Congo and Azerbaijan according to SIPRI. The T-55 all went to Cambodia.

The stuff onboard MV Faina for the South Sudanese rebels was supposedly ordered well ahead of the date of the above list. SIPRI estimates that the shipment was only the last of a larger order made in 2006.
 
StingrayOZ said:
I wonder if any nation bought a whole bunch of retro equipment and fitted itself out with a retro 60-70's soviet state era defence force. Walmart of old russian gear.

Was it the shipping of this stuff when the Somali pirates captured a ship full of old russian gear? MV Faina?
Click to expand...

Indonesia brought most of the ex East German navy in 1992. From wiki.

16 x Parchim corvettes, 14 x Frosch class landing ships and 9 x Kondor class minesweepers for USD$12.7 million.
 
StingrayOZ said:
I wonder if any nation bought a whole bunch of retro equipment and fitted itself out with a retro 60-70's soviet state era defence force. Walmart of old russian gear.

Was it the shipping of this stuff when the Somali pirates captured a ship full of old russian gear? MV Faina?
Click to expand...

It typically gets sold off to countries that have little money and no powerful enemies. Uganda bought some Russian T-55s recently. Thanks for the list.

EDIT: 60 used MiG-29s. I'm building my own airforce now.
 
The German MiG-29G (modified -A) and MiG-29GT (modified -UB) were donated to Poland in 2003/04 (all except 29+03, which remains on display in Germany). Poland uses 14 of them, the other 8 are in reserve.
 
Ukraine has its own ex-Soviet stock of MiG-29s. They've been selling them off little by little.
 
What about India ? there are still alot of old Mig-21s in service, one of the main objectives of the MMRCA project is to phase them out & replace them with current-gen fighters.
 
Yep, India is a big one. They also use tons of toys like BMP-2, T-72, until recently T-55, currently still ues Osa SAMs, and others.
 
carlgoon said:
Indonesia brought most of the ex East German navy in 1992. From wiki.

16 x Parchim corvettes, 14 x Frosch class landing ships and 9 x Kondor class minesweepers for USD$12.7 million.
Click to expand...

Almost a gift, as I recall that was masterminded by the science minister and they have to spend up big to get it all working. Big incomparison to the purchase price.

At that price you can see why countries buy them. You get a defence force for near scrap metal pricing.
 
StingrayOZ said:
Almost a gift, as I recall that was masterminded by the science minister and they have to spend up big to get it all working.
Click to expand...
The modernisation of the ships was partially paid from a credit given by the German government (425 million DM); subsequent credits were given in 2001 and 2003. One of the ships almost sank during transfer.

The Indonesian science minister "convinced" Ludwig-Holger Pfahls, then an undersecretary in the German defense ministry, to sign off the deal. Pfahls was the main actor in at least half a dozen major cases of multi-million-dollar bribery in the defense ministry concerning deals with at least Israel, Saudi-Arabia and the USA. The Israel deal cost him his post in 1992 (he "voluntarily retired"); afterwards he got jobs with the companies he finagled the deals for.

After criminal proceedings were started against him in 1999 he fled to Taiwan, probably spent a while in Hongkong and was finally arrested in Paris in 2005 (it is suspected that Securite and DGSE supported him in the meantime) and deported to Germany where he was convicted only for the Saudi-Arabia bribe. He received a 27 month prison sentence of which he served half before he got out on probation. He is currently (since mid-april) in court again facing charges of fraud, insolvency and extortion.
 
carlgoon said:
Indonesia brought most of the ex East German navy in 1992. From wiki.

16 x Parchim corvettes, 14 x Frosch class landing ships and 9 x Kondor class minesweepers for USD$12.7 million.
Click to expand...

All of which are still in service. The Parchim's received an upgrade a few years ago.
The Frosch have been used to bring back immigrants from Malaysia and were heaviliy involved in the post-Tsunami relief, ferrying aid.
 
Some countries in Eastern Europe (Romania for example) still use MiG-21's in their Air Forces. In quite essential ammounts: about 70 of those mid-60s birds. More over that, it is the only combat aircraft in Romanian AF.
 
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