Yuri Kobzar15:20, 27.11.23

Since the beginning of the invasion, only one Russian company has bought Ukrainian spare parts worth more than 150 million hryvnia.

Ukrainian enterprises continue to supply the Russian aircraft industry with components for military equipment, despite a full-scale war and sanctions . Only one company, Avia FED Service, supplied such goods worth 370 million rubles (more than 151 million UAH), writes the publication Important Stories .

As journalists found out based on customs data, the company imported components for An-124 aircraft produced by the Kharkov machine-building plant “FED” for almost 120 million rubles, spare parts for location stations for Ka-32 helicopters produced by the Kiev plant “Radar” for more than 67 million, parts An-24 and An-12 engines produced by Motor Sich, as well as products of the Kiev Artem plant, Kharkov Aggregate Design Bureau, Volchansky Aggregate Plant and other Ukrainian enterprises for approximately 170 million. In addition, the company purchased goods in France and the USA and Great Britain.

As journalists found out, the Russian company Avia FED Service was founded in 1993 as a representative office of the Kharkov FED plant. According to “Important Stories”, the current director of the company, Alexander Reshetnik, is from Lugansk, and received his higher education in Kharkov; on his personal website there are photographs with employees of the FED plant.

According to the Russian government procurement register, Avia FED Service’s clients are mainly the Russian Ministry of Defense, enterprises of the Rostec state corporation and the presidential special flight squad “Russia”. 

“Important Stories” notes that after the start of the war in Donbass, the Kharkov FED plant officially stopped all supplies to Russia, losing about 70% of sales. And in 2018, the Avia FED Service company itself came under Ukrainian sanctions. According to Important Stories, for this reason, in 2022-2023, it received supplies from Ukraine not directly, but through the Linker company registered in the UAE. It is led by a certain Andrei Kurta, he allegedly comes from Chernigov.

“Important Stories” contacted Linker owner Alexey Palchik. He said that he is not involved in deliveries to Russia. Director of Avia FED Service Alexander Reshetnik told reporters that the products of Ukrainian factories supplied to Russia after the full-scale invasion were purchased in 2020–2021 and were simply “lying abroad.” 

Russia systematically circumvents sanctions

As UNIAN wrote, Russia manages to systematically circumvent Western sanctions. A striking illustration of this was the recent scandal with the Canadian drone detection system SkyEye, which was acquired by the Russian technological university MIREA.

As journalistic investigations show , in general, Russia imports any sanctioned goods it needs without any problems. For this, front companies around the world are used, and sometimes goods are even delivered directly from Western countries directly to Russia.

(C)UNIAN 2023