Ukraine continues to supply Russia with spare parts for aeroplanes and helicopters

The aviation industry of Russia continues to receive supplies from the Russian company Avia FED Service, which, for its part, bought most of the spare parts in Ukraine.

Source: an investigation by Vazhnye Istorii, a Russian outlet focused on journalistic investigations 

Details: Since the beginning of the full-fledged invasion of Ukraine, Avia FED Service has supplied the Russian Defence Ministry, Rostec and the presidential Air Force with spare parts worth at least 650 million roubles ($7.3 million) (2022-July 2023). Most of it, 370 million roubles ($4.1 million), came from Ukraine.

According to customs data, the company imported:

• spare parts for An-124 aircraft manufactured by the Kharkiv FED Machine-Building Plant for almost 120 million roubles ($4.1 million);
• spare parts for radars of Ka-32 helicopters, manufactured by the Kyiv plant Radar, for more than 67 million roubles ($757,000);
• spare parts for An-24 and An-12 aircraft engines produced by Motor Sich (in Soviet times known as Motorobudivnyk Zaporizhzhia Industrial Association);
• products of the Kyiv Artem Plant, the Kharkiv Aggregate Design Bureau, the Vovchansk Aggregate Plant and other Ukrainian enterprises, for approximately 170 million roubles ($1.9 million).

There were also deliveries from France, the USA and the UK.

Before the start of the war in Ukraine’s east in 2014, the Kharkiv FED Machine-Building Plant (KhMZ) was the main supplier of Avia FED Service; Russia accounted for 70% of sales, the outlet writes.

Originally, Avia FED Service was founded in 1993 as a representative office of KhMZ. Oleksandr Reshetnyk, the current director of the plant, was born in Luhansk, studied at the Kharkiv Aviation Institute, and there is a section on his personal website with photos of FED employees.

With the beginning of the war in Donbas, the plant officially stopped deliveries to Russia. In 2018, Avia Fed Service came under Ukrainian sanctions.

According to Vazhnye Istorii, this did not prevent the supply to the Russian Federation – not directly, but through the Linker company registered in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). The company has a website in several languages, including Russian; it says that it is focused on the supply of aircraft parts for Mi-8, Mi-17, and Ka-32 helicopters "anywhere in the world".

Linker received Ukrainian products, in particular, from Motor Sich, whose director Viacheslav Bohuslaev was detained last October on suspicion of high treason for "illegal supplies of military goods for Russian attack aircraft."

The website of Linker's related company Amis says that the company is the official representative of Motor Sich in the UAE and "has all the necessary permits and licenses."

The last delivery from Linker was made in January of this year, Vazhnye Istorii notes with reference to customs data. After that, deliveries continued through the company Bakaitorg1 from Kyrgyzstan, which was registered in April 2023. During this time, it managed to sell 40 million roubles (US$451,000) worth of Ukrainian KhMZ products to Russia.

The Linker's owner on LinkedIn is Oleksii Palchyk, probably a native of the city of Poltava, a graduate of the Irkutsk Higher Military Aviation School, the outlet notes.

Vazhnye Istorii contacted Palchyk, but he stated that "the Linker company has never delivered and isn't delivering anything from Ukraine to Russia." To a clarifying question whether Linker supplied goods for the company Avia FED Service, Palchyk said that he was "not ready" to answer.

Alexsandr Reshetnik, director of Avia FED Service, told Vazhnye Istorii that the Ukrainian products that came to the company in 2022-2023 were purchased earlier and were simply "lying abroad."

However, he could not answer the question of how it was possible in the case of deliveries through Bakaitorg1, registered a few months ago.

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