Cash wasted by the military; VIEWPOINTS.

BRITISH frontline troops in Afghanistan are so short of helicopters and transport planes that they are being bailed out by the Russians.

The Ministry of Defence is using civilian Russian-built Mi-8 and Mi-26 transport helicopters to ferry supplies and soldiers in Afghanistan. The pilots are freelance Russian and Ukrainians.

Britain is also hiring massive commercial Russian Antonov aircraft to fly vehicles and heavy equipment to Afghanistan.

Even more extraordinary is that elite British forces have been forced to use helicopters from a Third World nation to mount covert operations because of a desperate lack of UK aircraft.

The British Chinook 3As, which cost the British taxpayer pounds 250m, are white elephants that cannot be flown, as the Ministry of Defence failed to ask Boeing for the rights to the avionics software.

Now the Chinooks are being downgraded, at an added cost of pounds 60m, into normal utility helicopters. It will be at least 18 months before the work is completed. The aircrews will have to be trained to fly them, which could take another nine months.

Andrew Thomas Nutt Heolddu Road, Bargoed