After the invasion of Russian troops into Ukraine, powerful sanctions were applied against the aggressor by Western countries, which, among other things, dealt a serious blow to the field of civil aviation and the field of aircraft construction. Restrictions on the supply of aircraft and original spare parts for them turned out to be the most painful for the Russian side. Therefore, after February 2022, the Russian Federation could no longer replenish its fleet of aircraft at the expense of Boeing and Airbus companies. Moreover, Russia was deprived of the possibility of maintenance of its aircraft both at the airports of Western countries and on Russian territory. Therefore, the Russian Federation was forced to buy spare parts for civil aviation through third countries (first of all, using Arab petrocracies) and at a price that was often three times more expensive than the manufacturer’s price. In addition, this forced the Russian Federation to establish smuggling of uncertified parts, which clearly had a negative impact on both the terms required for maintenance and guarantees of safe operation of aircraft.
Another problem was the downtime of part of the aircraft fleet. Yes, 50% of the Airbus fleet in the Russian Federation is no longer used. For example, the airline «S7» has 31 out of 39 Airbus A320/321 aircraft left on the ground. Although the maintenance of the aircraft fleet, which is used for its intended purpose, is carried out, however, the application of «gray schemes» and the practice of parallel import to obtain the necessary spare parts has led to a significant increase in the cost of maintenance (on average – by about 40%). This provoked an increase in the cost of tickets and a decrease in passenger traffic. Since the beginning of 2025, Russian airports have stopped their work 455 times and diverted planes to reserve airfields 736 times. Russian carriers suffer tens of millions of dollars in losses. Needless to say, Russian news about technical malfunctions, accidents and plane crashes with dead passengers on board has increased significantly.
According to the latest forecasts, by 2027, Russia will lose at least half of its civilian aircraft fleet of –, more than 100 foreign airliners, about 230 Soviet-made aircraft and more than 200 helicopters. At the same time, Russia’s aircraft industry is also in decline. New, promised on paper Russian aircraft, which are still in the process of construction and testing, have already risen in price by 45-70% of the planned cost. Russia can no longer purchase, at least directly from Western companies, the aviation components and materials it needs, which significantly complicates the production of new aircraft.In such conditions, when the entire civil aviation infrastructure of the Russian Federation is under threat, the Kyrgyz Republic came to the aid of the Russians in the process of circumventing Western sanctions. Michelin tires, Airbus chassis, Thales navigation system, Safran hydraulic equipment and many other components of the aviation industry are purchased by a number of Kyrgyz firms, which then redirect these products to Russia. Most notable in this activity is Service Fly Bishkek. Moreover, on the huge Russian market, the specified Kyrgyz company had only one client, namely – Warehouse Foress. By the way, both companies were founded in May 2023. Probably, these two companies form a kind of Kyrgyz-Russian hub, to which all orders for products for the aviation sector from all Russian territories flow. Moreover, all well-known European manufacturers assure that after February 2022 they did not have any business relations with either Service Fly Bishkek or Warehouse Foress. And this means that this hub used the services of some other intermediary companies. However, hub transactions were eventually noticed in the West, as a result of which on October 30, 2024, the United States imposed sanctions on Service Fly Bishkek and Warehouse Foress for «activities in the aerospace sector of the Russian Federation economy». It is worth emphasizing that civil and military aviation have a lot in common, for example, components and spare parts. Therefore, the goods that the Kyrgyz company Service Fly Bishkek sent to Russia could well play not the least role in the hostilities of the Russian military and space forces against Ukraine and its civilian population.
All goods related to the aviation sector are dual-purpose products, which means that they can be easily and quickly adapted to the needs of the military industry. In addition, the Russian regional plane may well be used as a military cargo plane.
In this context, it should be noted that during 2023-2024, Service Fly Bishkek delivered products for Warehouse Foress with a total value of more than $20 million. Among other things, these were hydraulic equipment, navigation system, alternators, DC motors, batteries, chassis, panels, consoles, switchboards, printed circuit boards, gaskets, tires, washers, electrical conductors, ferrous and plastic products, valves, bearings, fasteners, screws, bolts and nuts. But «cooperation» does not apply only to aviation components. In July 2023, there was a case of the largest Russian import from Kyrgyzstan in terms of value, starting from February 2022, namely –, the Russian company Direct Investments (Krasnodar city) purchased an aircraft from the Kyrgyz side for $60 million. According to unofficial data, this company actually belongs to the Russian oligarch Oleksandr Tkachev (former governor of the Krasnodar Territory of the Russian Federation and ex-Minister of Agriculture of the Russian Federation). The second most expensive import from Kyrgyzstan to the Russian Federation – is the acquisition by «Trans Capital» (Moscow) from the Bishkek Big Mountain Group of the Boeing 737-700 airliner for $32 million.
So there are sanctions, but they still do not have the destructive effect for which they are adopted. The main problem with the inefficiency of restrictions is that most Western companies lose control over their components, equipment, and finished products immediately from the moment of sale! If manufacturers set clear restrictions on the resale of their goods to third parties, as well as carried out checks on the further fate of their products, the level of effectiveness of sanctions introduced by the West against the Russian Federation would be much higher!
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