US offers Viper, Black Hawk helicopters to Slovakia in revised pitch

WARSAW, Poland — As Slovak officials ponder the purchase of new attack helicopters, the country’s Deputy Prime Minister and Defense Minister Robert Kaliňák has announced Bratislava has received two new offers from the United States, allowing the nation to choose between 12 AH-1Z Viper helos and 12 upgraded UH-60 Black Hawk copters.

“Now it is important to make a decision in an efficient and quick manner. I think that we will have the results of these analyses in the coming days,” Kaliňák said, as quoted by the state-run news agency TASR.

Last July, the U.S. State Department approved a tentative foreign military sale of 12 Vipers, manufactured by Bell, to Slovakia for an estimated $600 million. This represented a solid increase compared with the initial offer of $340 million pitched to the previous Slovak government. That discount was partly due to the fact that a contract with Pakistan, the initially envisioned recipient of the aircraft, had fallen through.

Meanwhile, as Slovakia’s incumbent Cabinet has hesitated to buy the Viper copters, Ukrainian officials have intensified their lobbying in Washington to secure the helos for their defense against Russia.

The Slovak military currently operates a fleet of nine UH-60 Black Hawks manufactured by Sikorsky, a subsidiary of Lockheed Martin.

Kaliňák said there is a significant difference between the original $340 million Viper offer and the current price of the helicopters, which exceeds €550 million ($582 million).

Jaroslaw Adamowski is the Poland correspondent for Defense News.

波兰华沙——在斯洛伐克官员考虑购买新型攻击直升机之际，该国副总理兼国防部长罗伯特·卡利尼亚克宣布，布拉迪斯拉发已收到来自美国的两份新报价，该国可以在 12 架 AH-1Z 蝰蛇直升机和 12 架升级版 UH-60 黑鹰直升机之间进行选择。

据俄罗斯国家通讯社塔斯社报道，卡利尼亚克表示：“现在重要的是要以高效快捷的方式做出决定。我认为我们将在未来几天内得到这些分析的结果。”

去年7月，美国国务院批准了一项向斯洛伐克出售12架贝尔公司生产的“蝰蛇”战斗机的初步军售协议，总价值约6亿美元。这比最初向斯洛伐克前政府提出的3.4亿美元报价大幅增加。此前报价降低的部分原因是，与巴基斯坦（最初设想的飞机接收国）的合同最终未能达成。

与此同时，由于斯洛伐克现任内阁对购买蝰蛇直升机犹豫不决，乌克兰官员加大了在华盛顿的游说力度，以确保获得这些直升机用于防御俄罗斯。

斯洛伐克军队目前拥有九架由洛克希德·马丁公司子公司西科斯基公司制造的UH-60黑鹰直升机。

卡利纳克表示，最初 Viper 直升机的报价为 3.4 亿美元，而目前的报价超过 5.5 亿欧元（5.82 亿美元），两者之间存在显著差异。

Jaroslaw Adamowski 是《防务新闻》驻波兰记者。