Vladimir Putin anticipated that his invasion of Ukraine would last no more than a few weeks, but it has now lasted 13 months. As a result of international sanctions, the invaders are still losing money, whether it is on the battlefield or the tarmac of Toronto’s Pearson Airport.
A big Russian-flagged cargo plane has been parked at Pearson Airport seemingly abandoned since the beginning of the disastrous invasion, which has cost hundreds of thousands of lives and racked up an equally massive expenditure.
After transporting COVID-19 test kits to Canada via China, the Antonov An-124 ‘Ruslan’ airplane which is registered with Volga Dnepr Airlines, was grounded in late February.
A federal directive prohibiting Russian-flagged aircraft from operating in Canadian airspace led to the grounding of the aircraft, one of the biggest industrial cargo carriers in the world.
In 2022, website blogTO was told by Transport Canada that “as part of a suite of economic countermeasures against the Russian Federation following its invasion of Ukraine, the Government of Canada closed Canada’s airspace on February 27, 2022, to Russian-owned, chartered or operated aircraft, including in the airspace above Canada’s territorial waters.”
They said they were “aware that there is a Russian aircraft currently grounded in Toronto,” and that it “has not seized any aircraft.”
“The aircraft is unable to depart in Canadian territorial airspace as it would be in violation of the Notice to Airmen or NOTAM [Notice to Airmen], which may lead to enforcement actions taken by Transport Canada” said a spokesperson for the group.
One can easily get a close look at the Russian freight plane right now because it is parked in a long-term storage location at the northeastern corner of the airport.
The prolonged grounding of the aircraft has meant some rather expensive parking fees. The airport’s standard daily rate is $1,065.60 for airplane parking. Ballpark, this would total just over $426,000 to date, although they pale in significance to even a single day’s losses on eastern Ukraine battlefields.
According to conflict experts Oryx, located in Turkey, it has been visually confirmed that Russia has lost close to 9,900 military vehicles since the invasion began. Of that, 1,901 tanks, which may cost up to $5 million USD each, were destroyed, damaged, or taken by Ukrainian forces as of March 28.
By November 2022, Russian military spending had reached an astounding $82 billion USD, and that amount has continued to climb ever since.
The estimated $50–90 million USD unit cost of an AN-124 airplane, or even a loss of a few hundred thousand dollars, wouldn’t likely put much of a dent in Putin’s war machine, but the aircraft still dominates the Pearson Airport skyline as a stark reminder to the locals of the conflict raging halfway around the world.
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