Iraqi Army receives Mil Mi-28NE gunship helicopters it will use against ISIS militants

August 30, 2014 Helicopters, Iraq, Troubled Areas, War on ISIS
David Cenciotti

The Iraqi Army Aviation has been delivered Mil Mi-28NE gunships.

According to a statement by the Iraqi MoD, Baghdad has received an unspecified number of Russian Mil Mi-28NE Night Hunters.

A video uploaded on Youtube shows some of the new desert camouflage-painted attack choppers, in a hangar; even if the video says those are the first examples of the all-weather, day-night, two-seat anti-armor attack helicopters delivered to Iraq, according to some sources they are actually the helicopters of the latest batch.

In fact, as reported in February, at least 23 helicopters have been already delivered to the Iraqis: the first batch of 10 in September 2013 and the second of 13 examples, in January 2014.

Iraq expects to give its Special Forces the support of around 40 Mi-35 (export version of the Mi-24) and Mi-28NE attack helicopters to back operations against ISIS. Along with the Russian helicopters, Baghdad will get some American F-16 Block 52 jets.

 

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David Cenciotti is a journalist based in Rome, Italy. He is the Founder and Editor of “The Aviationist”, one of the world’s most famous and read military aviation blogs. Since 1996, he has written for major worldwide magazines, including Air Forces Monthly, Combat Aircraft, and many others, covering aviation, defense, war, industry, intelligence, crime and cyberwar. He has reported from the U.S., Europe, Australia and Syria, and flown several combat planes with different air forces. He is a former 2nd Lt. of the Italian Air Force, a private pilot and a graduate in Computer Engineering. He has written five books and contributed to many more ones.

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11 Comments

  1. The article doesn’t say who or which country has supplied these helis, is it the Russians ?

    • Probably because they want to play Russians against Americans. Also the US will hold back on spares provided the Iraqi gov does what the US wants. Russia and China would never hold back on spares for the reasons the American’s would. I expect to see more influx of Russian aircraft too for similar reasons.

      • The Russians have a long history of holding back spares and munitions in order to influence decision making by the nation that own the weapon systems. Iraq will be no different. Google MiG diplomacy.

        • No doubt. Who would not? My point is the Russians and Chinese won’t do it for the reasons the US would. For instance in Africa the Chinese are getting everywere because the US has a long history of holding back on aid and business deals because African tin pot dictators want to act like tin pot dictators. The Russians and Chinese would neve hold back spares for that kind of reason. To a ruling elite the US is hypocritical. 85% of the time they’ll deal with you the way you want them to deal with you, but that other 15% can be a real doozey sometimes. Look to Iran as an example of history as to how much this can effect a nation. Iran being a good example based on the extreme effort they went thru in order to provide their own spares by hook, crook, and reverse engineering.

    • U.S put pressure on Iraq to buy 24 Ah-64 but until now Iraq did not sign any contract

  3. the Russians are supplying the Mi-28s – Iraq purchased those. a mixture of leased/bought Apaches were approved by congress earlier this year to fight ISIS

  5. Check out the F-16 in the background at 0:52. Anyone know how many falcons the US has delivered to Iraq now?

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