“Foreign-made aircraft continue to be imported to Russia in defiance of US and EU sanctions. ”, — write: epravda.com.ua
Foreign-made aircraft continue to be imported to Russia in defiance of US and EU sanctions. Thus, since the beginning of 2024, at least 28 aircraft have arrived in the Russian Federation from abroad, including both small aircraft and large passenger liners. The Moscow Times writes about this with reference to the Russian opposition publication “Verstka”, which got acquainted with the closed data of customs statistics. Airplanes banned for sale to Russia were most often imported through Turkey (11 times), three planes were delivered through Oman, two through the United Arab Emirates and the same number through Germany. Serbia, Sweden, Kazakhstan, China and Mongolia were also mentioned among the intermediary countries at the Russian customs. Ireland, Cyprus and Kyrgyzstan were indicated in the customs declarations only in the form of a code. Of the 28 aircraft, several were passenger Bombardier, Airbus, ATR 42-500 and Hawker 800 XP.Advertisement: One of the Bombardier aircraft worth about $45.5 million was imported in the name of Denys Krasnopolsky, the general director of the Inpromactiv joint-stock company, which is engaged in the production aircrafts. Also, Bombardier worth from $24.5 to $32.8 million was imported by the Meridian airline from the UAE, they are used for passenger flights between Moscow, St. Petersburg, Nizhny Novgorod, Tehran, Baku, Astana and other cities. Another Bombardier, worth about 16 million euros, was delivered to the Skylight airline from the capital of Kyrgyzstan, Bishkek, and now it operates flights to China, Turkey, Dubai and the Maldives. Advertisement: French Airbus A319-111 worth about $35 million, bought by the Russian company “Aurora” through Lithuania, performs flights in the Far East of the Russian Federation. In addition, one Boeing 737-800 passenger plane was purchased by the Yakut airline “Alrosa” for flights to Moscow, St. Petersburg, Novosibirsk and Blagovishchensk. According to the customs documents, nine planes were brought in by the “Modern Technologies” company of 52-year-old businessman Yevhen Kabanov. He is the founder of the Turkish company Edermont LTD and Kyrgyz Edermont Pamir, through which aircraft are supplied to Russia. In particular, Kabanova’s companies helped import Cessna aircraft, Aero Commander 680V, designed for civil aviation, as well as the American Piper PA-28RT-201T aircraft. At the same time, the company associated with Kabanov openly advertised the import of aircraft to circumvent sanctions. In the first case, according to Kabanov, there are two options, the first of which is to overrun the plane yourself or to use the services of a pilot. In the latter case, the plane goes to the base, where it undergoes Russian registration and receives a certificate of airworthiness. Another option is transportation by land or sea. In this case, according to Kabanov, the plane must be disassembled, loaded into a container and sent to an intermediate destination. After customs clearance, it goes to its destination, where it goes through customs again. Then, at the base, the plane must be assembled, flown around, and the necessary documents must be obtained. Read also: “Horror on wings”: how the Russian Federation is losing the “pride” of its civil aviation. We will remind: since the beginning of the war in Ukraine, the Russian aviation industry has been able to produce only seven aircraft suitable for civil aviation – SuperJet 100.