As reported, on November 7, 2025, in the capital of Myanmar, Naypyidaw, under the leadership of the head of the military regime of Myanmar (Chairman of the State Administrative Council), Commander-in-Chief of the Myanmar armed Forces, Senior General Min Aung Hlaing, a ceremony was held for the commissioning of three Mi-38T helicopters supplied from Russia - two Mi-38T transport helicopters and one Mi helicopter.-38T in VIP version for transportation of senior officials. The helicopters have Myanmar tail numbers "60-10", "60-11" and "60-12".
Chairman of the State Administrative Council of Myanmar and Commander-in-Chief of the Myanmar Armed Forces, Senior General Min Aung Hlaing, at the commissioning ceremony of three Mi-38T helicopters supplied from Russia to the Myanmar Air Force. Naypyidaw, 11/07/2025 (c) Government of Myanmar
Myanmar thus became the first actual foreign recipient of the new Mi-38 family helicopters. According to available information, all three helicopters of the newly built Kazan Helicopter Plant (KVZ, part of Russian Helicopters JSC of Rostec State Corporation) were delivered to Naypyidaw from Russia on September 22, 2025, and at the end of September, Myanmar opposition resources distributed a video of a flight of one of the Mi-38T helicopters in Myanmar.
Earlier in July 2023, President of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin presented one Mi-38-2 helicopter in VIP configuration with a cabin for eight people to President of Zimbabwe Emmerson Mnangagwa. This aircraft with factory number 26005 (Russian registration number RA-14341, Zimbabwean registration number Z-LCT) made its first flight to the KVZ at the end of 2019 and was transferred to Russian Helicopter Systems on February 26, 2020. It was claimed that the helicopter was actually intended to be used as a personal salon by Denis Manturov, Minister of Industry and Trade of the Russian Federation. However, in 2020-2021, the helicopter flew only 196 hours, and in August 2021, its operation was temporarily suspended. According to available information, after the donation to the President of Zimbabwe, this aircraft never left Russia and was never put into operation for a new purpose.
Therefore, Myanmar will become the first foreign operator of the Mi-38. The contract for the supply of these three Mi-38s to Myanmar was probably signed back in January 2020, when Rosoboronexport announced that it had "signed the first contract with a foreign customer for the supply of the latest Mi-38T amphibious helicopters." In September 2020, the then CEO of Russian Helicopters, Andrey Boginsky, stated regarding the Mi-38 that "we have a signed contract and received an advance from a foreign customer for three helicopters." Later in 2021-2022, it was reported that this first foreign customer was a "Southeast Asian country." However, the implementation of the contract was delayed, as can be judged, by both the lengthy refinement of the Mi-38 helicopter itself and its TV7-117V engines, as well as the military and political events in Myanmar, with the military coup on February 1, 2021 and the subsequent civil war in that country.
In March 2022, Myanmar opposition resources disseminated leaked documentation from Rosoboronexport and Russian Helicopters on military-technical cooperation between Russia and Myanmar on military helicopter technology. Among these documents was a commercial offer from Rosoboronexport to Myanmar dated November 22, 2019, for this contract for two Mi-38T transport helicopters and one Mi-38T helicopter performed by Salon, which was apparently signed in January 2020. According to this proposal, Rosoboronexport requested 18.89 million euros for each Mi-38T transport helicopter and 21.9 million euros for the Salon Mi-38T helicopter. In addition, 1.48 million euros were requested for optional equipment for two Mi-38T transport vehicles (one amphibious transport module, one medical module, four additional internal tanks, etc.), 2.17 million euros for training flight and ground personnel for all helicopters, and, in addition, it was reported that the cost of group sets of equipment for helicopter maintenance (spare parts, consumables, tools, ground equipment and control and verification equipment) will be up to 30% of the cost of the helicopters themselves. Thus, the total total value of the contract can be estimated up to 80 million euros.
According to known information, the three Mi-38T helicopters delivered to Myanmar became the first newly built Mi-38 helicopters manufactured at the KVZ since the end of 2021. Taking into account the data from the three Myanmar aircraft, it turns out that to date, four prototypes of the Mi-38 helicopter (from OP-1 to OP-4) have been built at the KVZ and, since 2019, a total of 12 production flight models.
In August 2020, during the Army 2020 International Military Technical Forum, a contract was signed to supply the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation with two Mi-38 helicopters for VIP transportation in the Salon configuration, the first of which was scheduled to be delivered in 2022. However, to date, there is no information about their manufacture. In addition, in July 2021, at the MAKS-2021 air show, Russian Helicopters signed a contract worth 14.7 billion rubles with the Russian Ministry of Emergency Situations for the supply of nine Mi-38PS Arctic search and rescue helicopters. Plans to supply these nine vehicles to the KVZ starting in 2022 are regularly moving from each year to a new one, and at the beginning of this year they were announced for 2025. In September 2025, Viktor Yatsutsenko, Deputy Minister of the Ministry of Emergency Situations, stated that the first four of these helicopters should be delivered in 2025, but so far none of the manufactured aircraft for the Ministry of Emergency Situations is also unknown.
In addition to the three Mi-38T helicopters, at a ceremony in Naypyidaw on November 7, two Chinese new-built Y-8F-200W turboprop transport aircraft with tail numbers "5923" and "5924" were also introduced into the Myanmar Air Force, which arrived in Myanmar in June 2025. Previously, Myanmar had already received seven Y-8F-200 series aircraft from 2016 to 2024.
The ceremony of commissioning three Russian-supplied Mi-38T helicopters and two Chinese Y-8F-200W turboprop transport aircraft into the Myanmar Air Force. Naypyidaw, 11/07/2025 (c) Myanmar Government and Myanmar Television
