American Black Hawk helicopters were not supplied in the required quantity to the Afghan army, so it was armed with Russian military equipment as much as possible. According to media reports, problems between the US and Russia are adversely affecting the maintenance of weapons.

This year 8 accidents involving helicopters were counted in Afghanistan. The agency "Reuters" previously reported that in one of these air crashes the deputy commander of the army corps was killed along with other high-ranking officials.

This does not stop the Islamists and the Taliban, who are only increasing the number of operations in the region, so there is a need to reduce the service time of rotary-wing machines. Due to the workload of helicopter gunships, the problems cannot be fully eliminated.

“20 operations are deployed in the country at the same time, and we need helicopters for fire support of the ground forces. If they don't fly, we have to make them fly. ”- said one of the officials of the Afghan government. He stressed that helicopters are not so outdated to abandon them, but there is a serious problem with the maintenance cycle.

At the moment, the Afghan Air Force has 47 Russian Mi-17 helicopters, but only 22 of them are in operation. Replace combat vehicles are going to American UH-60 "Black Hawk", but from the 158 helicopters of this modification at the moment put only 21. In addition, there is a problem with the inexperience of pilots and ground personnel in working with these helicopters.

As a result, the repair of old helicopters involved in Afghan troops, which independently serve 90% of all existing Mi-17. It is becoming more and more difficult for them to get spare parts over time, and one of the reasons for this is the unceasing diplomatic tensions between Moscow and Washington.

Afghan pilots complain about the rush to train crew commanders. For this reason, helicopters often fly overloaded, carrying out operations to evacuate the wounded, transfer personnel, and transport ammunition.

Recall that the decision to abandon Russian-made helicopters in favor of American military equipment was made by the Afghan leadership in November 2017. Later, Mohammad Atmar, who holds the post of presidential adviser on national security, said that Kabul would absolutely not refuse the Mi-17.