Belarusian guilty plea exposes shadow trade in banned aircraft parts to Russia

A Belarusian woman has pleaded guilty in US federal court in an aviation export-control case that offers a behind-the-curtain glimpse at how Western aircraft parts can move through shadow brokers, intermediaries and third-country companies before reaching Russian aircraft operators.

Yana Leonova, 33, also known as Yana Liavonava, pleaded guilty on May 20, 2026, in US District Court for the District of Columbia to violating the Export Control Reform Act. US District Judge Loren L. AliKahn scheduled sentencing for August 10, 2026.

Leonova, a Belarusian citizen who prosecutors said most recently resided in Russia, was arrested in France and extradited to the United States in November 2025.

The guilty plea moves forward a case that began with allegations that Leonova and others helped procure US-sourced avionics and aircraft equipment for private aircraft operated or maintained by her former Russian employer, which US authorities say is on the Commerce Department’s Entity List for national security and foreign-policy concerns.

The case also points to a murky corner of the global aviation supply chain in which aircraft parts often move legally through distributors, brokers and secondary-market suppliers, especially when operators need hard-to-find components for older or out-of-production aircraft. Prosecutors say Leonova and her co-conspirators used that same kind of indirect supply chain to conceal the true end user and move components to Russia without required US export licenses.

According to the US Department of Justice, the scheme began in May 2022, after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Prosecutors said Leonova worked with US and Armenian co-conspirators to buy aircraft parts from US-based distributors, then used companies in Armenia and elsewhere to ship the parts to Russia.

The parts could not legally be exported to Russia without licenses from the US Department of Commerce. Prosecutors said Leonova and her co-conspirators instead repeatedly misstated or concealed the true end users and destinations of the aircraft components by submitting false information on export documents. They also routed payments in US dollars from foreign bank accounts into bank accounts in the United States.

An indictment in the case identifies one US supplier only as “U.S. Company-1,” a Teterboro, New Jersey-registered aircraft parts company. The indictment says the company supplied rotables, expendables, hardware, spares and electronic equipment for aircraft made by Airbus, Boeing, Bombardier, Dassault, Gulfstream and others.

The indictment also identifies an unnamed New Jersey-based naturalized US citizen as the founder, owner and manager of the company. That person is described only as “Co-conspirator-1” and is not named as a defendant in the public indictment.

The aircraft components cited in the indictment included Airbus A321 windows, fan blade pairs for A321 aircraft and a multiscan weather radar associated with a Bombardier Global 6000 registered RA-67241.

The indictment says an Armenian intermediary wired multiple payments to a New York bank account tied to the US aircraft parts supplier in June and July 2022. Those payments included amounts of $82,655, $297,000, $100,000, $97,500, $100,500 and $100,000.

The case is one of several recent US prosecutions involving alleged efforts to move aviation equipment to Russia through intermediary countries after export controls and sanctions tightened following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

In January 2026, an Indian national was sentenced to 30 months in prison for conspiring to export controlled aviation components and a navigation and flight-control system from Oregon to Russian end users. In another case, Russian nationals admitted to a scheme to acquire and export controlled aviation technology from US suppliers to Russian buyers, primarily commercial airline companies. Another defendant, a dual US-Russian citizen, was sentenced to 41 months in prison for trying to export two Cessna aircraft to Russia through Armenia.

The Leonova case shows how the legal secondary market for aircraft parts can become a type of gray market for aircraft parts when brokers, intermediaries or buyers conceal the true destination of controlled goods.

US Attorney Jeanine Pirro said Leonova used shell companies, false paperwork and foreign intermediaries to conceal the unlawful export of US-origin aircraft components to Russia.

“Anyone who thinks they can exploit US supply chains to arm our adversaries should look carefully at what happened to Yana Leonova,” Pirro said. “Investigators traced the scheme across multiple jurisdictions and brought her to justice. There is no distance far enough to protect those who threaten our national security interests.”

Leonova faces a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison. Her actual sentence, to be determined by the court, will likely be far less, though still likely reaching to years behind bars.The post Belarusian guilty plea exposes shadow trade in banned aircraft parts to Russia appeared first on AeroTime.

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