The RAF (Royal Air Force) is to use a Russian base in the transfer of military hardware from Afghanistan as British soldiers pull out, reported The Times.
The military hardware, estimated to cost billions of UK pounds and including 3000 vehicles, aircraft parts, rocket launchers, engines for Tornado bombers and body army, will be transported via cargo planes from Helmand province to the Russian base in Ulyanovsk on the Volga.
The plan, approved by president-elect Vladimir Putin, was devised to avoid the danger of transporting the hardware overland to the Pakistani coast or to Afghanistan's railway station along its northern border.
According to The Times, whilst the troops can be flown out, senior officers in the British army fear that without a safe route of exit for hardware there could be a "Dunkirk in central Asia", where the troops leave but the equipment must be left behind as was the case in France in 1940.
