Russia allocates another $1.23 billion to company buying planes from Western lessors

(Reuters) - Russia has allocated an additional 107.7 billion roubles ($1.23 billion) from its rainy day fund to a state company that has been purchasing aircraft from foreign lessors, the finance ministry said on Wednesday.

The ministry said it had purchased bonds of NLK-Finance, a subsidiary of state-owned insurance company NSK, bringing the total amount spent on NLK-Finance bonds to 296.8 billion roubles ($3.38 billion).

After the West imposed sanctions on Russia over its invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Moscow re-registered aircraft leased from Western companies and then started negotiations to buy them out. Most of the planes were manufactured by Boeing and Airbus.

Russia has already settled insurance claims with Western lessors including AerCap, for over 100 planes, using money from the rainy day fund and transferring ownership of the planes to NSK.

($1 = 87.8330 roubles)

(Reporting by Gleb Stolyarov and Darya Korsunskaya; Editing by Mark Trevelyan)