The remnants of eight British Hawker Hurricane fighter planes delivered to the USSR during the Second World War as Lend-Lease support have been discovered in a forest outside Kiev, UK media have reported.
The aircraft, paid for by the US and built in Britain, were reportedly found in a search using metal detectors after an unexploded World War II-era bomb was discovered nearby.
Moscow eagerly accepted Britain’s offer to provide Hurricane fighters to help the USSR slow down the initial Nazi assault in the summer of 1941, with the planes earlier credited with helping London survive the Luftwaffe’s massed air raids on southern England during the 1940 Battle of Britain.
The first Hurricanes sent to the Soviet Union were flown by British pilots directly to Murmansk, with subsequent parties delivered and assembled in Arkhangelsk by British specialists, who helped train Soviet pilots and even took part in joint patrols providing cover for convoys delivering wartime aid.
But Lend-Lease aid wasn’t free, with the USSR sending billions of dollars in gold, precious metals, wood, and other resources to the US and the UK during the war, and Russia paying off the remainder of the balance owing only in 2006. Most Soviet Army Air Force Hurricanes which survived World War II were deliberately broken up to avoid paying hefty fees to the US. The eight Hurricanes found near Kiev had their radios, guns, and instruments removed and were broken up before being buried.
It’s estimated that as few as 16 restored Hurricanes are left in airworthy condition in the world today. Two Hurricanes are on display in Russia – one at a war memorial outside Murmansk, and a second at an aircraft museum near Moscow.
Soviet Hawker Hurricane on display at the Russian Northern Fleet museum. File photo.
© Sputnik / Pavel Lvov
/ Mixing Sacred War With Modern Disaster
National Aviation Museum of Ukraine lead researcher Valerii Romanenko couldn’t help but attempt to mix the discovery of the WWII-vintage planes with contemporary politics, calling the Hurricanes "a symbol of British assistance during the years of the Second World War, just as we are very appreciative of British assistance nowadays."
"In 1941, Britain was the first who supplied fighter aircraft to the Soviet Union in mass scale. Now the UK is the first country which gives Storm Shadow cruise missiles to our armed forces," he added.
The United Kingdom is second only behind the United States in terms of military assistance provided to Kiev in the West's ongoing proxy war against Russia, sending over 5.5 billion pounds sterling ($7 billion US) in weapons over the past year. London also proved instrumental in frustrating peace talks between Moscow and Kiev, with now ex-Prime Minister Boris Johnson traveling to Ukraine in the spring of 2022 to foil an imminent peace deal.