After the Russian army was exposed to theft of “Doomsday Plane” at the end of last year, another strange military equipment theft accident was exposed recently.
A Russian destroyer commander conspired with others to steal two copper propellers from a retired destroyer.
According to the column of the U.S. power website “Battle Zone” on January 11, the Russian navy said that a former commander of the currently retired “modern”-class destroyer Bespokoynyy conspired with others to steal two copper propellers on the destroyer, when the The destroyer is being converted into a floating museum in the dry dock.
According to the report, the two thieves stole the pair of individual propellers weighing about 13 tons and replaced them with a pair of cheaper metal propellers, which sounded like the plot of a Hollywood movie.
The “war zone” quoted a report from Russia’s international news agency that Sergei Shashawiko, the head of the military investigation department of the Russian Navy’s Baltic Fleet, confirmed that the investigation into the theft was nearing completion, but did not disclose the name of the former destroyer commander and his accomplices involved, nor did he say What punishments may they face? The value of this pair of propellers is about 39 million roubles (about 522,000 US dollars).
Shashawiko said that in order to cover up the traces, the people involved in theft replaced them with imitation propellers, which “are much cheaper and quality than the original copper propellers”.
The theft took place at Yantar Shipyard in the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad, which is also the headquarters of the Russian Baltic Fleet.
It is not clear when theft occurred, but Shashawiko said that the incident occurred after the destroyer Unforgettable arrived at Yantal Shipyard in 2016, and the destroyer was decommissioned and converted into a museum.
This modification process involves removing two propellers and driving shafts and sealing the hull so that it can remain floating without regular maintenance.
The USS Unforgettable, which was officially decommissioned in 2018, is currently on display at Patriot Park in Krenstadt, Kotlin Island, near St. Petersburg.
The standard displacement of this type of ship is 6,600 tons, and the full load displacement is close to 8,500 tons.
Not long ago, the Russian army also had an accident of the theft of spare parts of the “Doomsday Aircraft”.
In early December 2020, Russian media revealed that a theft occurred on an Ilyush-80 “Doomsday aircraft” of the Russian Air Force.
The equipment inside the aircraft was stolen by unidentified thieves and has not been found yet.
The exact time of the theft is unknown, but it is known that the Il-80 aircraft was undergoing repairs at an airport in the Rostov area at that time, “unidentified people opened the cargo door” and stole “radio equipment”.
