Russia has already agreed on the purchase of more than a hundred aircraft from Western aircraft rental companies.
Russian the state has set aside 107.7 billion rubles, or about 1.1 billion euros, from the national welfare fund, known as the oil fund, to buy the western planes it nationalized a few years ago.
According to the Reuters news agency, the Russian Ministry of Finance announced on Wednesday that it has allocated additional funding to a state-owned company called NLK-Finance, which has purchased aircraft from the companies that originally leased them.
NLK-Finance is a subsidiary of the state-owned insurance company NSK. In practice, the Ministry of Finance finances NLK-Finance by underwriting bonds issued by the company.
If the funding announced on Wednesday is included, the ministry has supported the company with a total of almost 300 billion rubles.
Russia has already agreed on the purchase of over a hundred aircraft from the Irish Aercap and other rental companies and their transfer to NSK's ownership. In addition to Aercap, the Irish MBC Aviation Capital and the American Air Lease have also announced arrangements for the sale of the planes.
Russians aircraft leased by airlines from Western leasing companies remained in Russia in 2022 after Russia invaded Ukraine.
After the Western countries had imposed economic sanctions against Russia, it re-registered the planes in Russia, i.e. in practice took them over. Before the war, Russia was a significant market area for Western aircraft rental companies.
Some of these rental planes are now parked at Russian airports because the rental companies canceled their contracts due to the sanctions.
Since then, Russia has started negotiations with rental companies to buy the rental planes so that they will not be confiscated. This danger exists if Russian companies fly planes abroad.
The Russian Ministry of Transport announced last year that the country might buy machines for around 300 billion rubles. Reuters reported in December last year that 190 billion rubles worth of machines have been purchased so far.
Most of the Western rental planes are either manufactured by the American Boeing or the European Airbus. Both companies stopped providing their maintenance services and spare parts to Russia in March 2022.
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