Copyright © BusinessAMBE 2023
The sanctions network around
The purpose of the Western sanctions is to wring the neck of the Russian economy, making funding a "special military operation" simply impossible. Since the invasion of
In the news: Between
- The vast majority of supplied parts enter
Russia via theUnited Arab Emirates (RUB 9 billion ),China (RUB 5 billion ) andTurkey (RUB 2 billion ). But European countries also continue to supply, despite being labeled "unfriendly" byRussia and co-signing European sanctions. -
Half of all deliveries go to
Aeroflot , Rossiya and Pobeda, three ofRussia's largest airlines. Rossiya and Pobeda are subsidiaries ofAeroflot .
Origins: Those European transfers are particularly striking. So who is supplying?
- Meduza looked into which companies were involved in the deals. One of them is Griffon, which supplied
1.2 billion rubles worth of spare parts. The company is registered in theUnited Arab Emirates , and has two Russians as owners. One of them also owns two companies inRussia , also involved in the trade of aircraft parts. -
However, shipping from
Europe toRussia is a lot more difficult. Therefore, it often goes through other countries. The Lithuanian Right Direction Aero sold spare parts to Cargoline, a company inKyrgyzstan . That in turn sold them on to Russian company Air Fly. "The owner and CEO of Cargoline assured us that he had no ties toRussia or sanctioned companies. He misled us, and apparently also falsified documents," Pavel Chalapov, the CEO of the Lithuanian company, told Meduza.
Underlying: The swaps do really hurt the Russian aviation sector.
Boeing and Airbus have a de facto duopoly in the aviation sector. A lot of Russian airlines also have a fleet of American Boeings or European Airbuses to transport passengers and cargo.-
This puts the airlines in a difficult position: as a result of the sanctions, they can no longer obtain spare parts. And this has immediate consequences: in the second half of 2022, the number of aircraft accidents in
Russia rose sharply compared to the first half of the year. And the trend continues: inJanuary 2023 alone, there were eight incidents of faltering landing gear. - Russian airlines often have to turn to friendly countries for spare parts. These are then delivered and used, without any kind of inspection. These are often "white products," as the resale of official parts is monitored. Consequently, the white spare parts are often of lower quality.
The solution: still work out deals with foreign countries, or 'eat' own aircraft.
Aeroflot is working on several solutions: in April, for example, it flew an Airbus A330-300 to the Iranian capital ofTehran , where it would be repaired by an Iranian company.Iran is one of the few countries with which such a deal is going. Before the sanctions, the same deal was in place withHong Kong -based HAECO, but sinceRussia was expelled from the international payment system SWIFT, it can no longer pay the company.- The other solution is to cannibalize aircraft. After implementing Western sanctions, it seized more than 400 aircraft, leased from Western companies, that were still parked at Russian airports. These are now being swept apart and used to patch up aircraft still flying.
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Eventually,
Russia wants to get rid of Western aircraft manufacturers, and Russian companies must fly around with Ilyushin's and Tupolev's. Only, these planes also make extensive use of Western components. Especially in the field of electronics and chips,Russia simply cannot offer its own alternative.
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