Given the evident corruption in Russia, would you expect these aircraft to be reliable and well constructed?
Or is this just another way of transferring money out of Russia to avoid sanctions?
the suggestion that this might be a way of getting assets out of Russia or hard currency in falls over, in my opinion due to the following:
Zimbabwe is sanctioned and does not have the hard currency to pay therefore this is almost certainly some kind of hardware for influence or some other quid pro quo (raw minerals?) rather than hard currency.
As regards the aircraft being assets... Right now they are Russian machines with a small comparative value because anyone that might want to buy them will be hugely wary about their actual worth and the support they might get from the OEM going forward (otherwise they would be selling them to someone else rather than giving them away). Secondly - after they have been in Zimbabwe for a few months they will be of even less value as they will not have been maintained or supported properly.
OH