Russia denies selling Venezuela 98 planes

Russia's state arms export monopoly Rosoboronexport on Friday denied signing a deal for the sale of 98 Ilyushin-114 planes to Venezuela, as reported earlier in two Russian newspapers. Rosoboronexport, which was said by the Izvestia and Vremya Novostei dailies to have signed the deal with Venezuela, denied the reports as "not true" in a statement on Friday.
The Izvestia daily, citing the director of a company that produces the engines of the planes, said Venezuela bought the planes on the sidelines of the 2007 Maks airshow near Moscow. Izvestia said the deal for the Ilyushin-114, a twin-engine propeller plane that can accommodate 64 passengers and was first flown in 1999, could be worth several billion dollars.