As part of its ‘fulfilment of contractual obligations’ Russia’s biggest airline, Aeroflot, has bought eight Airbus A330 aircraft from foreign leasing companies.

Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Western sanctions have barred Russia’s airlines from returning the planes, with more than 400 aircraft leased from Western firms stranded in Russia. The value of these planes is around $10billion USD.

Aeroflot told Reuters that it had purchased eight Airbus A330s from foreign leasing companies but did not specify which firms the aircraft had been leased from. The purchase could be an attempt to maintain good relations with the lessors.

Currently there are 26 Airbus A330s-300s in Russia, according to ch-aviation. Russian authorities have been transferring the aircraft to their own registry to ensure that Russian airlines can use them, and that they continue to have valid airworthiness certificates.

Meanwhile, leasing firms have begun to make lengthy insurance claims to try to recover some of the lost value of the aircraft.

The largest claim has been made by Dublin-based AerCap, the world’s biggest aircraft lessor, which has submitted a $3.5 billion insurance claim for more than 100 jets.

EU regulations governing sanctions imposed in response to Russia’s military campaign in Ukraine generally prohibit “the award and continued execution of public contracts and concessions with Russian nationals and entities or bodies established in Russia”. Aeroflot is majority-owned by the Russian state.

But one of the exemptions enacted on April 8 says national authorities in the EU may authorise “the execution of an aircraft financial lease concluded before 26 February 2022”, as long as it is “strictly necessary to ensure lease re-payments” and no payment is made beyond the transfer of the aircraft.