A video of a company of soldiers manually pushing an Il-76MD military transport aircraft has exploded on social networks. Many commentators decided that they were trying to "start the plane by pushing," but this turned out to be fake, explained a former pilot and author of the Fighterbomber channel.
The footage shows servicemen lining up along the fuselage and pulling the 92-ton Il-76MD into its parking space. On the Web, this was regarded as an attempt to start the engines without ground equipment.
This is how you can start an airplane, but you need to push it forward. And even then, only if it's a helicopter. There, a worm gear transmits torque from the wheels to the rotor. And here they are simply putting the plane in its parking space. Parking it, in short.
It should be noted that such transport aircraft start their engines via an auxiliary power unit, and not from the movement of the chassis. Therefore, such "versions" are pure folklore.
It is also worth recalling that the Il-76MD-90A received new domestic PS-90A-76 engines with a thrust of 14.5 tons each, a new wing design, a reinforced chassis, and modified navigation and radio-electronic systems with the PrNPK "Kupol-III-76M(A)".