Canada Closed Airspace To Russia n Confisticate Russian Aircraft

In June 2023 Canada confiscated an Antonov An-124, one of the biggest transport aircraft in the world. It arrived at Pearson Airport in Toronto to deliver Covid-19 tests in February 2022. Soon afterward, Canada closed its airspace to Russian aircraft in response to Moscow's attack on Ukraine on February 24.

At the beginning of June, Canada seized a Russian plane that had been stuck in Toronto since February 2022.

According to report, the aircraft was an Antonov An-124, one of the biggest transport aircraft in the world.

It was one of the few heavy-lift transport aircraft that Russia's military still has in operation.

Cargo planes have become indispensable enablers for modern warfare. There never seems to be enough of them to meet demand for hauling weapons, supplies, and personnel.

So Canada's seizure of a Russian cargo aircraft is bad news for a Russian air-transport fleet that is now a shadow of what it was in its Soviet glory days.

Antonov An-124

A Volga Dnepr Airlines Antonov An-124 grounded at Canada's Pearson International Airport in May 2022.Steve Russell/Toronto Star via Getty Images

The plane has been sitting at the airport since then. To add insult to injury, it has accrued more than $330,000 in parking fees, according to The Wall Street Journal.

The aircraft is the first physical asset seized under Canada's Special Economic Measures Act, which was amended in June 2022 to allow confiscation of assets belonging to entities deemed responsible for a major breach of international peace, corruption, or human-rights violations.

The AN-124 "is believed to be owned by a subsidiary of Volga-Dnepr Airlines LLC and Volga-Dnepr Group, two entities against which Canada recently imposed sanctions due to their complicity in President Putin's war of choice," the Canadian government said in a press release.

"Should the asset ultimately be forfeited to the Crown, Canada will work with the Government of Ukraine on options to redistribute this asset to compensate victims of human rights abuses, restore international peace and security, or rebuild Ukraine," the government said. Ukraine's prime minister said earlier this year that Kyiv planned "to confiscate" the plane.

Losing a single plane aircraft will hardly dent Russia's military or civilian air-transport capacity, but it does highlight how far Moscow's aerial cargo fleet has fallen since its Soviet heyday.

The Soviet Union had more than 1,100 military transports by the time it collapsed, according to a study by the Royal United Services Institute, a British think tank. Today, Russia has just 446 such aircraft, according to the 2023 edition of The Military Balance, published by the International Institute for Strategic Studies.