Eight British Hurricane fighters from the Second World War were unearthed in a forest near Kiev, according to the BBC. Their delivery to the USSR was paid for by the United States under Lend-Lease.
In total, 3,000 such aircraft were delivered to the Soviet Union from 1941 to 1944. Most of them were shot down during air battles or went for spare parts.
However, some of them were deliberately broken and buried after the war in order not to pay for this equipment to the United States. Under the terms of lend-lease, the country was obliged to pay for serviceable weapons that remained in the ownership of the Soviet army. The found Hurricane were underground for this very reason.
In fact, the buried aircraft were bare frames. All equipment, radio stations, machine guns and even metal parts that could be melted down were removed from them. They were found with the help of metal detectors after an unexploded bomb since World War II was found nearby.
A similar procedure for the supply of weapons to Ukraine was adopted by the US Congress and entered into force on May 9, 2022. It is called "The Lend-Lease Law in Defense of Democracy in Ukraine."
