One of Russia's leading manufacturers of fighter jets and civilian aircraft continued to import parts and other equipment from European and U.S. suppliers despite the imposition of Western sanctions following the start of Moscow's invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
Customs import data provided to RFE/RL's Russian investigative unit, Systema, found that aviation parts worth more than $8 million were imported to Russia from the start of 2022 until July 2023. More than half of that figure came from Germany; overwhelmingly from a plant owned by the U.S. industrial and technology corporation Honeywell.
The main Russian recipient of those imported parts was Yakovlev, a company formerly known as Irkut, with a flagship plant located in the Siberian region of Irkutsk.
Among Yakovlev's best-known aircraft are the multipurpose fighter jets Su-30MK and Su-30CM, both of which have seen wide use in Russia's nearly two-year-old invasion of Ukraine. The company also produces the Yak-130 training jet, and components for the Airbus A320 passenger jet as well as the Russian passenger jets MC-21 and Sukhoi Superjet 100.
RFE/RL obtained the data with the help of C4ADS, a nonprofit data-analysis and global-research organization based in Washington, D.C.
Omar al-Ghusbi, an analyst at C4ADS, analyzed the trade data to identify components sent to the Irkut factory with potential military applications in the Su-30 fighter jet.
Included in the imports are various avionics and aircraft components, in particular electric-drive computer controllers, navigation equipment, and automatic systems modules, all of which can be potentially used in the construction and repair of the Su-30 and other military aircraft, according to al-Ghusbi.
Responding to questions from Systema, a Honeywell spokeswoman said that the company "has no record of any sales, deliveries, or services to Irkut Corporation since February 24, 2022."
"Honeywell blocked all transactions with Irkut Corporation on that date. In response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Honeywell wound down its businesses and operations in Russia," the spokeswoman, Caitlin Leopold, said in an e-mail. "Honeywell complies with all applicable export license requirements and sanctions laws and regulations."
On March 9, 2022, Honeywell, a major U.S corporation that manufacturers everything from home-security and climate-control systems to technology components, announced that it was exiting Russia entirely due to the sanctions.
Yakovlev did not respond to a request for comment from RFE/RL.
The Business Of Russian Aircraft Industry
Under a sweeping industrial reorganization ordered by President Vladimir Putin 2006, Irkut and Russia's other leading aircraft design and manufacturing companies were put under the umbrella of the United Aircraft Corporation.
The United Aircraft Corporation, meanwhile, is part of the state-controlled military and technical conglomerate Rostec, whose chief, Sergei Chemezov, is a former KGB officer who worked alongside Putin in East Germany in the 1980s.
The European Union and the United States began levying sanctions on Russia in 2014, after Moscow seized control of the Ukrainian Black Sea peninsula of Crimea. The measures restricted some imports on weapons and related military products into Russia.
After the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Irkut -- and then Yakovlev -- was among scores of other Russian companies that were specifically targeted by new Western sanctions. Its manufacture of Su-30 fighters was specifically cited.
The result has been escalating problems for the Russian aviation industry in general, as airline companies struggle to service and maintain Western-built jets like Boeing and Airbus, which are commonplace in commercial airline fleets.
Also widely used are Russian- and Soviet-designed Tupolev and Ilyushin jets, which are easier to procure replacement parts for, as well as conduct required maintenance.
Experts say the Russian government must invest heavily in rebuilding domestic supply chains for civilian and military aviation, which have atrophied as Russian companies tapped global supply chains for parts and supplies. Supply chains for countless Russian imports have been severely disrupted by Western sanctions.
For its part, Yakovlev intends to retool its internal production line and begin building engines and spare parts. But it still imports large amounts of parts from Western suppliers.
"Western components are not available, and everything needs to be started again. To do this, you need to completely restart the entire process. And there are very big problems with this," Aleksandr Lanetsky, director of the consulting company Friendly Avia Support, told Current Time. "Sanctions have a cumulative effect. And the further it goes, the worse it gets."
'Not For Military Use'
Though not a huge amount of money -- the company reported revenue of around $2 billion in 2021, the year before the invasion -- the value of the parts imported by Yakovlev highlights just how hard it has been for Western governments to police sanctions restrictions on Russia -- and how spotty some Western companies have been in adhering to the restrictions.
Another Western company that Yakovlev sourced supplies from was Thales Avionics, a unit of Paris-based Thales. Customs data show Yakovlev imported at least $783,000 worth of aviation parts in 2022 and 2023.
In the months immediately after the Ukraine invasion, Thales continued to supply Russian customers. However, in the summer of 2022, the company announced that it would exit Russia entirely and close its offices in the country.
Procurement documents from Yakovlev provided to RFE/RL show that Yakovlev labeled some of the Thales equipment it was importing as "not for military use." It's unclear if that was an error or deliberate.
Thales did not respond to requests for comment from RFE/RL.
Several months after the start of the all-out invasion, French reporters found that French suppliers had continued shipping industrial goods -- including navigation systems, infrared detectors, and thermal-imaging cameras for tanks -- to Russian companies even after 2014, and the initial imposition of Western sanctions.
Thales and Safran, a company whose main shareholder is the French government, were the primary shippers of prohibited goods, the French reports found.
Some of Yakovlev's imports, meanwhile, came via third parties, or third countries. The company received some items that were labeled as military from Knipex and Bosch, both major German companies.
The data showed Bosch items being shipped via Algeria, in the spring of 2023, was a piece of equipment that appeared to be some sort of hot-air gun; Knipex allegedly supplied a wire cutter.
Knipex did not respond to a request for comment from RFE/RL. In an e-mail to RFE/RL, a Bosch spokeswoman said the company stopped selling the Bosch-made product prior to the invasion. She also said the company had instituted policies to meet sanctions regulations and export-control laws.
"Production and direct distribution of the product model has been stopped for several years, it ended before the start of the war in Ukraine and respective sanctions," the spokeswoman said. "It is our goal to prevent Bosch products from being used in a way that violates sanctions at the end of the direct or indirect supply chain within our sphere of influence."
Vladimir Milov, a former deputy Russian energy minister who is now an outspoken critic of the Kremlin, asserted that "European and generally Western business does not want sanctions against Russia" and "are looking for any opportunities to supply something, finding legal loopholes."
"Businesses will look for loopholes and in the absence of an executive apparatus for monitoring the implementation of sanctions, of course, they will find these loopholes," he said.
