Lawsuit against an air defense system operator of the russian armed forces charged with friendly fire has become a resonant topic across media as of late. The missile operator is facing allegations of shooting down an ally Mi-8 over the occupied Crimea in 2023. The trial, however, is not as notable for the incident itself as for russian defense ministry's assessment of losses it had caused.
Diving into the matter reveals another exemplary case of the Kremlin's habits of operating with the prices for their weapons.
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For context, on the morning of October 18, 2023, one of the air defense officers from a unit deployed in Crimea made a mistake when he was reporting a detected low-speed airborne threat to the upper command, as a result, this object was registered at a different point in the airspace. What was actually a friendly Mi-8MTV-5-1 came under fire by a Tor-M2DT missile system; all three crew members of the helicopter died.
The court found the officer guilty and sentenced him to three years of imprisonment in a penal colony, the culprit also must pay 3 million rubles to the widows of the deceased pilots and another 5 million rubles to the russian Ministry of Defense. Although the specifics of this sum are interesting: the defense department estimated the value of the Mi-8MTV-5-1 lost in the incident at 200 million rubles (~$2 mln), included in the fine.
Considering the overall secrecy surrounding many products of russian military industry, especially about their costs, the insight provides a rare indication of an approximate relevant price tag for a Mi-8 helicopter in russia.
Another aspect to take note of is that the friendly fire was opened by the "Arctic" version of the Tor missile system, designated as the Tor-M2DT. This main difference of this modification is that it was adapted to operate in the cold Arctic climate, also the chassis was replaced with the DT-30PM-T1 caterpillar tractor composed of two interlinked vehicles.
Back to the financial side of this story, Defense Express reminds of an illustrative example of Kremlin's pricing from earlier: the production cost of a Ka-52 attack helicopter is about 1.1 billion rubles but the Ministry of Defense under Sergei Shoigu was buying them for 0.9 bln, leaving the manufacturer's profits in the negative.
Another comparison could be drawn with the ministry's estimate of a lost Tu-22M3 strategic bomber(!) alongside a Kh-22 cruise missile in just 97 million rubles (~$1 billion) total. The figures appeared in a court case, too, from August 2023. That goes to say that in many cases, it is pointless to calculate the cost of russian weapons, especially of aviation, as often the price tags are purely declarative.
Previously, Defense Express also wrote that in February 2024, the russian Federation claimed to have stolen several Mi-8 and Il-76 aircraft from it, which later helped the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
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