Burma buys Russian MiG-29Jets,Mi-35 Copters

‘Rosoboronexport’, Russia’s sole arms exporter, will begin delivering the fighter jets and helicopters in 2010,close to the Russia-Burma negotiation process, Nikolsky said the contract includes delivering 20 MiG-29 fighter jets worth Euro 400 million (US$ 570 million) and 8 to 10 Mi-35 attack helicopters worth Euro 50 million (US$ 71 million).Burma’s military junta, which has ruled the Southeast Asian nation for the past two decades, chose Russia’s MiG-29 Fulcrum-D carrier-based fighter jets over China's offer of its latest J-10 and FC-1 fighters. Russia and China, the two veto powers at the United Nations Security Council, are known to be the closest allies of Burma’s reclusive military junta. Despite sanctions by the West, United States and European Union, including an arms embargo, Russia and China had been supplying military hardware to the pariah state. Burma, 1990s, had purchased Chinese military aircraft worth about US $ 2 billion, the Vedomosti said in a report on Wednesday.Burma in 2001 bought 12 MiG-29 fighter jets from Russia but Nikolsky said the current contract is so far the largest between the two countries, and possibly “the most important in [Russia-Burma] bilateral relations.” He said other vital part of the Russia-Burma relations includes cooperation in peaceful use of nuclear energy. Russia in May 2007 announced building a 10-megawatt nuclear reactor with low enriched uranium consisting of less than 20 per cent uranium-235.