LONDON – It’s a done deal. President Vladimir Putin has signed a law stating that all leased Russian aircraft now belongs to Russian carriers.

This is a big move, which will no doubt shake the way that the leased aircraft market will play out, wiping around $10bn worth of assets away from such companies.

News agency TASS reported this today and is a response to sanctions from the West regarding leasing firms having until March 28 to free themselves from deals with Russian carriers.

This, of course, comes as no surprise especially with reports last week that UTAir began the process of re-registering its VP & VQ airframes into RA.

Such elements also provide agreement to our analysis piece whereby the next stage of the chokehold from Russian aviation is now in place.

The next challenges for Russian carriers are now to access parts of the maintenance market that they are not banned from currently, especially with China refusing to provide such support.

This is a developing story.