The Russian government has proposed a deal in which funds currently frozen in the United States would be freed up, but only to acquire Boeing (BOE, Washington National) aircraft, Bloomberg has reported citing internal sources.
The proposal is a part of the ongoing talks between Moscow and Washington DC concerning the war in Ukraine. The report said that while the deal was not a condition for the ceasefire as such, Russian representatives acknowledged that new aircraft orders could only materialise if the hostilities were paused.
So far, the US and European countries have frozen around USD280 billion in Russian assets, although it is not clear how much of this sum is in the US.
The ch-aviation fleets module shows that Russian airlines retain two orders directly from Boeing: UTair for twenty-eight B737-8s and Volga-Dnepr Airlines for six B777-200Fs.
Recently, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said the country had asked the US to lift the sanctions on Aeroflot, allowing the state-owned flag carrier to resume flights to the US.
Following Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the US and the EU imposed strict sanctions on the country's aviation sector. Among other things, they banned the sale and leasing of aircraft, spare parts, and aviation-related services to Russia. Airlines from the country are also banned from EU and US airspace.
