Reuters: Due to Western sanctions, russia has spent more than $12 billion to support its aviation
Kyiv • UNN
russia has allocated more than $12 billion to support its civil aviation due to Western sanctions affecting the supply of aircraft parts, causing significant maintenance and operational problems.
Due to Western sanctions that have blocked russia's market for aircraft parts, the kremlin was forced to allocate $12 billion in government subsidies and loans to support its own aviation. This was reported by UNN with reference to Reuters.
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It is noted that the first problems in russia began in March 2022, when Western aircraft manufacturers Airbus and Boeing stopped supplying them with services and spare parts, and also stopped regular maintenance of the main air carrier Aeroflot and other russian airlines.
Since then, russia has spent more than a trillion rubles (more than $12 billion) to support the civil aviation industry, including aircraft production and financial assistance to airlines.
In the edition, the costs are almost twice as high as the 547 billion rubles of payments (over $6 billion) made in 2020-2021, when the COVID-19 pandemic caused a sharp decline in air travel.
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Last week, at a major press conference, russian president vladimir putin said that the Russian air fleet is "very overloaded" with foreign-made aircraft, and that russia plans to produce more than 1,000 aircraft by 2030.
According to the Swiss aviation intelligence service ch-aviation , 991 aircraft are currently operated by russian airlines, including 405 russian aircraft.
However, only 133 Superjet aircraft are made by the state-owned United Aircraft Corporation. Other Russian-made aircraft, such as Tupolev, Yakovlev, and Ilyushin, are occasionally used for commercial flights.
Reuters noted that having a reliable air force is extremely important for russia, both to transport people and goods across its vast territory and to reinforce moscow's narrative that sanctions have minimal impact.
Recall
Ukrainian intelligence has obtained classified information from the Russian Federal Air Transport Agency. The documents show the terrible state of Russian civil aviation, with a sharp increase in the number of air crashes and systemic maintenance problems due to sanctions and a shortage of spare parts.
