{"id":1620,"date":"2020-12-09T12:40:03","date_gmt":"2020-12-09T12:40:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.radiofree.org\/?p=136029"},"modified":"2020-12-09T12:40:03","modified_gmt":"2020-12-09T12:40:03","slug":"russia-opens-criminal-case-into-doomsday-plane-theft","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/2020\/12\/09\/russia-opens-criminal-case-into-doomsday-plane-theft\/","title":{"rendered":"Russia Opens Criminal Case Into ‘Doomsday’ Plane Theft"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Russian authorities say they have opened a criminal case into the theft of equipment from a military aircraft dubbed the “doomsday plane” that was designed to shield top officials from the effects of a nuclear explosion.<\/p>\n

The Rostov regional branch of Russia\u2019s Interior Ministry said in a statement on December 9 that more than 1 million rubles ($13,600) worth of equipment was stolen from the Ilyushin Il-80 plane at the Taganrog airfield, raising questions about the safety of Russia’s strategic military equipment.<\/p>\n

Speaking to journalists, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov described the breach as an “emergency situation” and vowed that “measures will be taken to prevent this from happening again.\u201d<\/p>\n

Russian media earlier reported that thieves broke into the aircraft, described as among Russia’s most-classified military planes, and stole electronic equipment, including radio boards.<\/p>\n

Military experts say the plane is one of four Il-80s designed to be used as airborne command posts for the Russian president and other top officials in the event of a nuclear conflict.<\/p>\n

Officials from the Taganrog Aviation Scientific and Technical Complex reported the theft to local police on December 4, according to Interfax.<\/p>\n

The Interior Ministry North Caucasus directorate reported on December 7 that the state-controlled Beriev Aircraft Company, which was carrying out maintenance of the Il-80 plane, had informed police that a cargo hatch breach had been discovered during an inspection of the aircraft, according to TASS.<\/p>\n

Broadcaster Ren-TV, which first reported the break-in, said all equipment was intact at the last inspection on November 26.<\/p>\n

The Il-80 had reportedly been undergoing repairs since the beginning of 2019.<\/p>\n

The plane, based on the Ilyushin Il-86 jetliner, has been in use since the mid-1980. It is designed to have some protection from the effects of a nuclear blast.<\/p>\n

The United States also operates a fleet of airborne command posts called E-4B Nightwatch.<\/p>\n

With reporting by the BBC, AFP, Interfax, and TASS<\/h6>\n<\/div>\n\n

This post was originally published on Radio Free<\/a>. <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Russian authorities say they have opened a criminal case into the theft of equipment from a military aircraft dubbed the \u201cdoomsday plane\u201d that was designed to shield top\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,23,24],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1620"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1620"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1620\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1621,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1620\/revisions\/1621"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1620"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1620"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1620"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}