Russia has said it is ready to supply South Africa with aviation equipment, including Mi-17 helicopters, as well as equipment to modernise the country’s railway infrastructure. Russian Minister of Natural Resources and Environment Alexander Kozlov announced the proposals on 27 October 2026 at a meeting of the Russia–South Africa Business Council at the Russian Chamber of Commerce and Industry in Moscow.
Kozlov co-chairs the Russia–South Africa intergovernmental committee on trade and economic cooperation. On the same day, he told TASS that bilateral trade had stayed above $1 billion a year for four consecutive years and was growing, with South Africa among Russia’s top six trading partners in Africa. Russia sells wheat and fertiliser to South Africa and buys fruit, nuts and manganese ore, and the two countries are working on joint investment projects in manganese mining and metallurgy.
Helicopters and railways
The Russian Embassy in South Africa did not elaborate further on the Mi-17 offer. Instead, it pointed to Russia’s helicopter business elsewhere in the region, noting that in May 2023 Russia’s state technology corporation Rostec reported the delivery of 18 Ansat light multipurpose helicopters to Zimbabwe for medical evacuation services. Equipped with medical equipment for emergency care, the helicopters were intended to improve access to patients in areas difficult to reach by road. Zimbabwe had signed contracts for Mi-17 and Ansat civil helicopters for its state agencies in 2022 and received its first medical Ansat that autumn, according to Rostec, whose chief executive Sergey Chemezov said: “Each medical helicopter is complete with full range of resuscitation and emergency equipment.”
With regard to railways, the Embassy said Russia is also ready to offer automatic control systems and other equipment to help modernise South Africa’s railway lines and increase the capacity of the state railway network. “Such cooperation could help modernise South Africa’s railway infrastructure, increase the capacity of its rail network and improve the efficiency of freight and passenger transport,” the Embassy said.
The Mi-17 is the export version of the Mi-8 family, the most widely produced helicopter design in the world. It is a twin-turbine medium transport helicopter that can carry troops, cargo and equipment inside its cabin or on an external sling, and it can be configured for air assault, casualty evacuation, search and rescue, firefighting and VIP transport, according to Russian arms exporter Rosoboronexport. Rosoboronexport also stresses its ability to operate in high-altitude and hot conditions and to fly on a single engine.
A Russian helicopter centre at Kempton Park
Russian helicopters are not new to South Africa. In March 2013, Denel Aviation and Russian Helicopters opened the first servicing and repair facility for Russian helicopters on the African continent, during a ceremony at Denel Aviation’s facility in Kempton Park, next to OR Tambo International Airport. The centre was launched on 26 March 2013, during the BRICS summit in Durban and a visit by President Vladimir Putin, which President Jacob Zuma described as “an important development in our relations”. Denel Aviation unveiled an Mi-8T operated by Advanced Aviation Logistics SA, which was mentioned as the launch customer.
Denel said at the time that around 650 civil and military Mi-8 and Mi-17 family helicopters were flying in Africa, and that its technicians had been trained and certified in Russia to carry out complete overhauls, Engineering News reported. Russian Helicopters, then led by Dmitry Petrov, said it planned to build out a major regional centre that would eventually service all Russian-built helicopter models in sub-Saharan Africa, Aviation Week reported.
The following year, Alexander Mikheev, then CEO of Russian Helicopters, said: “in South Africa, Mi-8/17 and Ka-32 series helicopters are operated from the Denel Aviation service centre that services civilian Mi-8/17 helicopters.” However, there has been no mention of the partnership since.
An air force built around Airbus designs
The South African Air Force (SAAF) has never flown the Mi-17. Its medium transport helicopter is the Oryx, a locally developed derivative of the Puma, and its attack helicopter is the Denel Rooivalk, which shares dynamic components with the Puma and Super Puma. Both types fly on Safran’s Makila turboshaft engines, which is why the SAAF’s support arrangements run through Denel and Airbus Helicopters rather than Russia.
That fleet has struggled for serviceability. A parliamentary reply in October 2023 showed that only 15 of the SAAF’s 88 helicopters across five types were available to fly, including five of 41 Oryx, and the Department of Defence’s annual report for 2025/26 said the SAAF flew 6,340 hours against a plan of 12,000, or 52.8% of target. In September, at the Africa Aerospace and Defence (AAD) 2026 exhibition, Airbus Helicopters and Denel signed a memorandum of understanding to lift SAAF helicopter availability, a framework intended to shorten the wait for parts and workshop capacity. Denel has also returned to profit and has been returning Oryx and Rooivalk helicopters to service.
Any military purchase would go through South Africa’s procurement agency Armscor, which recently sought industry information on a replacement for the Army’s R4 and R5 rifles, and would need funding from a defence budget that already struggles to cover maintenance of the aircraft the SAAF has.
Moscow’s courtship of Pretoria
The offer is the latest in a steady run of Russian outreach to South Africa’s defence establishment. Russia’s Aerospace Forces commander visited South Africa ahead of AAD 2024, a planned deployment of a Tu-160 bomber to that show fell through, and the Russian Navy training ship Smolny returned to South Africa in 2025. More widely, Rosoboronexport has said it is pursuing a $20 billion push across Africa.
Helicopters have been central to that push. The Mi-8 and Mi-17 family remains the most common medium helicopter on the continent, flown by air forces from Mozambique to Senegal, and Russian deliveries have continued to the Central African Republic and others. Keeping those fleets flying has often been the harder task, and Military Africa has examined how unauthorised maintenance, substandard parts and training gaps have contributed to helicopter crashes across Africa.
Reviving the Kempton Park link
For now, the Mi-17 proposal is an offer without detail: no quantity, customer, price or financing has been named, and no public response from South Africa’s Department of Defence has been reported. Its more realistic value may lie in maintenance rather than new aircraft. A revived Russian-certified support centre at Kempton Park could serve the hundreds of Mi-8 and Mi-17 helicopters flown by South Africa’s neighbours, an idea Russia and Denel first set out in 2013, but sanctions on Russian suppliers and Pretoria’s new support agreement with Airbus will weigh on any decision to buy Russian helicopters for the SAAF itself.