Russia asks the UN ICAO Aviation Agency to relieve sanctions on security concerns

Russia asks the UN ICAO Aviation Agency to relieve sanctions on security concerns
Russia asks the UN ICAO Aviation Agency to relieve sanctions on security concerns

By Gleb Stolyarov and Allison Lampert

(Reuters) -Rusia urges the UN Civil Aviation Agency to relieve sanctions on spare parts and over -ups, dismissing their response to war in Ukraine as “illegal coercive measures”, according to work documents and a source familiar with the matter.

Since the invasion of Russia of Ukraine in February 2022, Western sanctions have reduced access to aircraft airplanes and spare parts, leaving Russian airlines to obtain parts for more than 700 Airbus and Boeing aircraft on complex indirect import routes.

Russian authorities are now trying to negotiate the relief of sanctions, particularly in spare parts, which say they are critical for flight safety, a source in the Russian aviation sector told Reuters.

The Russian moves a challenge for the ICAO Assembly

Russia’s efforts are creating a challenge for a meeting in Montreal this week of the International Civil Aviation Organization, which establishes world security standards for civil aviation and has condemned Moscow for violating the sovereignty of the Airspace of Ukraine and its double registration of aircraft.

Russia submitted his request to ACAO after the United States lifted the sanctions to the Belarusa Belavia state airline last week that had been imposed after Minsk’s support for Moscow in his invasion of Ukraine.

In the work documents presented before the Triennial Assembly of the ACAO as of Tuesday, Moscow has said that the sanctions go against the global rules. Russia is also trying to obtain elections to the Governing Council of 36 states of Icao after not winning enough votes in 2022 after the invasion of Ukraine.

As the largest country in the world, Russia depends largely on commercial aircraft for domestic load and passenger transport through its 11 time zones, but recent incidents suggest that the Russian fleet is degrading.

At the end of July, an Antonov AN-24 of the Soviet era, built in 1976, crashed in the Far East of Russia, killing the 48 people on board. Days later, the Russian flag carrier Aeroflot connected dozens of flights after a paralyzing cyber attack.

“Illegal coercive measures violate the human right to freedom of movement, regardless of nationality and citizenship,” said a Russian working document.

“The OCO is required to take all practical measures to prevent states from applying discriminatory and coercive measures politically biased in the field of international civil aviation.”

Russia has a fleet of aged aircraft

The documents also criticize the closure of the airspace of 37 states for the flight operations of the Russian airlines, the suspension of aircraft certificates for airplanes operated by airline russians and prohibitions in maintenance and aircraft insurance.

The Russian aviation guard Rosaviatsiya did not respond to a request for comments from Reuters and the Ministry of Transportation declined to comment. The Ukrainian authorities were not immediately available to comment.

The Boeing and Airbus aircraft fleet in Russia is aging, and not all pieces can be imported through the so -called “gray”, the source of Russian aviation to Reuters told Reuters, which means that a significant portion of Western airplanes could be based.

“If in the near future, a Russian Boeing or Airbus crash and people die, what then? In any case, the sanctions will be blamed,” said the source.

(Gleb Stolyarov and Allison Lampert, Edition of Robert Harvey and Timothy Heritage)

(Tagstotranslate) Russia

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