Russia has bought US$500 million worth of aircraft parts to circumvent sanctions – ISW

Russia has circumvented sanctions and since 2022 has purchased almost US$500 million worth of components for aircraft, including military planes, from abroad.

Source: Institute for the Study of War (ISW); The Moscow Times

Details: Yakovlev (formerly Irkut), a Russian manufacturer of military and civilian aircraft and a subsidiary of the Russian state-owned defence conglomerate Rostec, has been successfully circumventing international sanctions and purchasing military equipment from abroad since 2022.

The Moscow Times reported that Yakovlev, which produces Su-30 fighter jets and Yak-130 trainer aircraft, has purchased nearly US$500 million worth of military equipment from abroad since 2022.

In particular, Russia sent Yak-130 aircraft to Iran in September 2023.

The Moscow Times reported that Yakovlev mainly purchased components for radar equipment and programmable controllers for military aircraft.

To quote the ISW’s Key Takeaways on 7 May:  

• Russian leader Vladimir Putin began his fifth term as Russian President on 7 May and stressed Russia's need for unchallenged autocratic rule while indirectly calling for victory in Ukraine.
• Russian ultranationalists lauded the start of Putin's fifth term as a historic event and explicitly approved of the autocratic tradition in which Putin is casting himself, with one of them hailing him as "imperator", the formal title of the Russian tsars since the time of Peter the Great. Russian ultranationalists also expressed hope that Putin will continue to deepen an anti-Western ideology that the Kremlin has been heavily developing since the start of the full-scale invasion.
• The current Russian Cabinet of Ministers and Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin formally resigned on 7 May as constitutionally mandated, and the ministers who return to service and the ones whom Putin replaces will indicate who has Putin's favour and signal his political priorities for his fifth term.
• Belarus has announced a surprise nuclear readiness inspection likely as part of the Kremlin's re-intensified reflexive control campaign targeting Western decision-making.
• Ukraine's Security Service (SSU) reported on 7 May that it exposed a network of Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) operatives who were planning to assassinate Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and other high-ranking Ukrainian intelligence and military officials.
• The Russian Prosecutor General's Office declared US non-governmental organisation (NGO) Freedom House an "undesirable organisation" on 7 May, likely as part of an ongoing effort to consolidate control over the domestic information space and further deprive Russians of access to civil society organisations and independent assessments of Russian civil and political rights.
• Russian forces recently made confirmed advances near Avdiivka, Donetsk City, and in western Zaporizhzhia Oblast.
• Russian occupation officials continue efforts to forcibly recruit Ukrainian civilians into the Russian military in occupied Kherson Oblast.
• The Kremlin is working with occupation administrators to strengthen Russia's control over the child welfare system in occupied Ukraine.

Support UP or become our patron!