During 2022-23, three Moldovan companies supplied various aircraft components to Russia for about $15 million. This is reported by the Moldovan service of Radio Liberty, UNN writes.
The companies in question are Airrock Solutions, Maxjet Service and Aerostage Services, which acted as intermediaries in the procurement. The scheme works as follows: the intermediary establishes contacts with companies in the countries of origin of the parts and places orders, while also providing transportation of the parts. In some cases, Moldovan intermediaries provided transportation of parts even to Russian airports, to hangars of Russian importing companies. However, the items did not physically pass through Moldova, so the transactions were not recorded in Moldovan customs documents.
The owners of the three Moldovan companies claim that they did not know that the parts purchased by their companies were going to Russia, explaining that they do not have direct contracts with Russian customers. The parts are purchased in the West or in the United Arab Emirates and are allegedly intended for companies in other CIS countries.
Russian airlines are in vital need of Western components to maintain their fleet of passenger and transport aircraft. European aviation sanctions were intended, on the contrary, to cut this supply chain to the Russians. Along with sanctions on other sectors of the Russian economy, the aviation sanctions were intended to increase the costs of the war for Russia and convince the Kremlin to stop the invasion.
The participation of Moldovan companies in the spare parts supply scheme became possible because Moldova did not comply with the anti-Russian aviation sanctions regime that the European Union adopted in response to Russia's large-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
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Oleksandr Ruvin, Director of the Kyiv Scientific Research Institute of Forensic Expertise, recently reported that thanks to the cooperation of KSRIFE and foreign journalists, three people were detained in the Netherlands who supplied goods to Russia in violation of sanctions.
"We are sincerely grateful to the international investigators whose professional activities help to block Russian routes of illegal supply of foreign microelectronics to equip enemy missiles and drones. Among the latter, we have a successful case of cooperation with journalists from the Netherlands. Their investigation led to the arrest of three people as part of a multinational investigation into an international smuggling network that was working to circumvent European sanctions against Russia. Such small local steps help to increase the effectiveness of sanctions pressure on the aggressor country," Ruvin said.