The Russian Federation's Transport Minister, Vitaly Savelyev, has confirmed that 76 Russian commercial aircraft have been seized overseas due to sanctions imposed after Russia's invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Savelyev, who was the CEO of Aeroflot from 2009 to 2020, confessed to the Russian media that his ministry was unprepared for this situation. He also revealed some statistics about the sanctions' impact on Russia's commercial aviation sector.
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The 76 aircraft he mentioned were temporarily outside Russia for various reasons, such as maintenance or commercial services, when the sanctions were implemented and were consequently seized. Besides the 76 aircraft that couldn't return to Russia, a large part of the Russian airliner fleet has had their operational capacity severely limited, not just because Boeing and Airbus ceased servicing Russian operators.
At the onset of the war, over half of the airliners used by Russian airlines were leased, and about two-thirds of the Western-made ones were registered in either Bermuda or Ireland. Russia declined to return these aircraft to their lessors, and while some of the affected aircraft have since been bought by Russian companies from their lessors, a legal dispute is still underway.
As a result, as of November 2023, Russian airlines can only operate international flights to 11 countries that have provided assurances against potential seizures. Currently, the Russian commercial aircraft fleet consists of 1,302 aircraft, 1,176 of which are passenger planes. Since 2022, over 800 aircraft have been re-registered in Russia.
