The US government has applied for and been granted a warrant to confiscate a $25 million Russian aircraft following a recent declaration made public.
A Boeing 737-7JU manufactured in the US is charged with flying into Russia from another nation in defiance of sanctions imposed by the US following Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
The statement from the US Attorney’s Office for New York’s Eastern District states that the aircraft was last in the US in 2014. Yet, the US claims that the plane violated federal law by flying “at least seven times” into and out of Russia.
According to reports, Boeing is owned by the Moscow-based PJSC Rosneft Oil Company. It is one of the biggest publicly traded oil businesses in the world.
In the press announcement, US Attorney Breon Peace stated: “Today’s enforcement action demonstrates there is a price to pay for Russian companies and oligarchs that flagrantly evade sanctions that the United States has imposed in response to the unjustified war against the people of Ukraine.”
The CEO of Rosneft, Igor Ivanovich Sechin, was previously sanctioned by the US in 2014 due to his connections to the Russian government.
At the time, Barack Obama, the president of the United States, issued an executive order directed at people perceived to be “responsible for or complicit in” measures to undermine the sovereignty and democracy of Ukraine.
In the same year, Russia made attempts to acquire the eastern provinces of Ukraine as well as the Crimean Peninsula. The restrictions prevented anyone in the nation from doing business with Sechin and froze his assets in the US.
Russia intensified its fight with Ukraine in February 2022 by launching a vast invasion and conducting missile strikes nationwide.
In response, the US has assisted Ukraine and taken steps to cut Russia off from the global economy.
The US Treasury Department stated it had imposed more than 2,500 sanctions in the previous year alone on the first anniversary of the invasion last month.
According to US officials, the transfer of a plane produced in the US to Russia was illegal under both the Export Control Reform Act and those sanctions.
The US president is given authority under the 2018 bill to “protect national security” by controlling the export and transfer of goods.
Andrew Adams, director of Task Force KleptoCapture, an interagency project established in March 2022 to implement the US sanctions and economic measures adopted in the wake of the war of Ukraine, stated that “By violating Commerce Department export controls, Rosneft has converted its jet into contraband.”
The US issued a warrant for a Boeing 737-7EM, another US-built aircraft that was owned by Russia, in August 2022.
The plane, estimated to be worth $45 million, was also charged with entering and leaving Russia in defiance of US sanctions.
It was also controlled by the Moscow-based PJSC Lukoil Oil Corporation, a multinational energy corporation from Russia.
