AirBaltic Denies Sanctions Breach Amid Allegations of Fuel Purchases From Russia

Latvia’s national airline, AirBaltic, said it was never in a position to purchase fuel from Russia, nor was there any need to do so, dismissing reports of a possible sanctions violation as inaccurate and misleading. This was stated by Imants Jansons, AirBaltic’s Senior Vice President for Legal Affairs, as quoted by Delfi.

In an article published on March 13, Verstka reported, citing obtained data, that AirBaltic likely purchased aircraft fuel from the Russian company Tatneft Aviaservice until March 2024, potentially violating European Union sanctions.

According to Verstka, the data indicates that since February 2022 and at least until March 2024, AirBaltic attempted to procure fuel from Russia 28 times. Of these, 13 purchases were successful, while 15 declarations in the database were marked as canceled.

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Both the airline and Latvian authorities insist that they have not worked with Russian fuel suppliers since the early months of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. At a press conference on March 14, Jansons stated that AirBaltic halted all flights to Russia immediately after the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

Jansons acknowledged that one of the companies mentioned in the article had been a partner of AirBaltic during the period when the airline operated flights to Kazan. Additionally, Gazpromneft-Aero received payments from AirBaltic in January and April 2022, including for refueling aircraft in Lisbon. However, he emphasized that all these transactions took place before the EU sanctions came into effect.

On February 10, the Latvian Ministry of Defense announced that Latvia will supply Ukraine with 42 Patria 6×6 armored personnel carriers this year, most of which will be newly manufactured.