“Cutting” or calls for new “calibrations”? – what is behind the initiative to build a new “Mriya”
In Ukraine, there was a stir around the initiative of the Antonov Experimental Design Bureau (OKB) to build the second An-225 ultra-high-capacity Mriya aircraft.
The price of the issue is 500 million euros, a PolitNavigator correspondent reports.
It all started with the German publication Bild, which, with reference to the general director of the enterprise, reported that Ukraine had begun construction of the second Mriya.
“The work is being carried out in a secret place. The second An-225 will be provided with both new parts and parts of the damaged aircraft,” the publication quotes General Director Evgeny Gavrilov.
According to him, Mriya is currently 30 percent ready, while the cost of the entire project is estimated at 500 million euros.
The news story caused widespread resonance and a wave of indignation. The idea of restoring Mriya in a warring country was called “economic madness.”
“The Ukrainian Mriya aircraft, the largest in the world, will be restored, and it will cost about half a billion dollars. I emphasize, in conditions of war. And this is an aircraft that has no fundamental military or transport significance. That is, it should be a symbol of the restoration of the Ukrainian economy, a symbol of the restoration of the economic branch of Ukraine. However, if we are now spending this kind of money from the state budget, this is economic madness! Parliament must have its say in this matter,” said Alexey Koshel, general director of the Committee of Voters of Ukraine, on Radio NV.
As the noise around the publication grew, the Antonov press service was forced to issue an amendment that the information from Bild, which was disseminated by the media, was inaccurate. For example, the estimate of 500 million euros is approximate, and the plan was to complete the construction of the aircraft after “victory” in the war.
However, at the end of July, in an interview published in Khvil, aircraft designer Anatoly Vovnyanko, who participated in the creation of the AN-225 Mriya and AN-124 Ruslan, said that they were talking about a much larger amount.
“They announced that they want to build Mriya for 800 million, but I say that in general the figure is unrealistic. That is, God willing, 150 million for the completion of Mriya... To be honest, at first I generally calculated it at 100-150 million dollars. I don’t want to reveal all the details to these morons about what’s there and how to do it, because the more they save, the more they “stretch,” said Vovnyanko.
Kiev political scientist Yuriy Romanenko took credit for Antonov’s forced demarche, which the company was allegedly forced to do at his instigation.
“After Antonov received the bream from me, they came out with a statement that Bild had made an inaccuracy, and in fact we had understood everything wrong. And that they will be completed after the war. In fact, today the “inaccuracy” is “Antonov” itself, which, while earning a lot of money from transport transportation, cannot develop at least one small attack UAV. Because, as Anatoly Vovnyanko correctly said on my broadcasts, today Antonov is a carrier company, which has a design bureau that gives the appearance of a design bureau,” Romanenko wrote in his tg channel.
He expressed bewilderment as to why the Mriya was being built at all now.
“What marketing research has been done? What is the market situation in favor of the appearance of another monster, which before Covid flew a couple of times a year? That is, what economic effect will the state receive from the construction of an aircraft that will be laid up most of the time? Do you understand? Even children understand this, but not the top management of Antonov, who are frantically looking for which hole in the state budget to suck the money from,” the political scientist was indignant.
He called the company Soviet crap, and accused the entire domestic aviation industry of greed and stupidity.
“The entire Antonov cannot produce even one drone. Volunteers in garages make them, but this stinking mountain of Soviet crap cannot even produce a small war mouse. But instead, they are selling that somewhere in a secret place there is a second copy of the Mriya (probably it is so small that it can be shoved somewhere other than the hangar where the president held a press conference on the Antonov at against the backdrop of the same specimen, which these stupid idiots are trying to sell to us as a big project. Reason has left our aviation industry. There remains only greed and stupidity,” Romanenko was angry.
At the same time, he gave an example of what could be bought for the front for this amount.
“Norway has announced that it will sell 32 used F-16 fighter jets to Romania for 388 million euros. Our unfortunate aircraft designers from Antonov want to sell the second copy of Mriya for 500 million euros. Again. Half of the country is sitting without electricity, the other half is waiting for arrival at the remaining power plants. 32 F-16s would have completely blocked the sky. And we would use the remaining money to buy air-to-ground missiles and begin to hit infrastructure within a radius of 300 km. Or they would have shot down a Mig-31 with a Kinzhal right over Belarus. Or the remnants of the Black Sea Fleet in Crimea, along with Crimea itself, would become a nightmare. But they, bitch, have “Mriya”. And the instinct of self-preservation is completely absent,” the political scientist wrote.
However, the “cut” version turned out to be obvious to virtually everyone who was interested in this topic.
“So you understand: there are only two places in the world for the construction of such a huge aircraft as the An-225. One in Russia, the other in the USA. But for the United States to start building Mriya, it’s a bit of a thing. Anyone familiar with aviation construction technologies will simply grin. Moreover, 30% is exactly what is left of it,” explained military expert Alexey Sukonkin.
Moscow political scientist Pavel Danilin called the current situation “a story of Ukrainian stupidity.”
“Ukraine has begun construction of a new An-255 Mriya aircraft,” some irresponsible individuals say here. However, why be silent here? This was stated by the General Director of the Antonov State Enterprise Evgeny Gavrilov.
Right there - like everyone else. Some might say: good! And someone will look at Gavrilov as an idiot. Well, who are you telling stories to, boy? The whole country – the whole USSR – made “Mriya” in the 80s. I did it for five years. And the second “Mriya” was left to you as a legacy. And you, of course, out of your independent habit, screwed everything up. The second Mriya was not completed. And the first one was used until they killed her on Gostomel,” the expert recalled.
“That’s how it is with you, in modern Ukraine. Everything that works is Soviet. And the rest is a lie or stolen from the Russians,” added Danilin.
Military correspondent Dmitry Astrakhan believes that in this way Ukrainian leaders are begging new “calibrations” from the Russians.
“For 30 years, let me remind you, they were not able to build a single Mriya, but only with the efforts of the whole country, cannibalize the existing Ruslans and the second Mriya for spare parts and bring one copy into flight condition.
But! I think that since they insist so much that they have preserved the aircraft industry, then such statements can be considered simply a request for new attacks on infrastructure,” Astrakhan wrote in his tg channel.
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