Motor Sich Airlines (M9, Zaporizhzhia) and its parent, the aviation engine manufacturer Motor Sich, are among five strategic companies Ukraine has taken control of, using wartime martial law for such a move for the first time since Russia’s invasion in February.
Oleksiy Danilov, secretary of the National Security and Defence Council, said that the assets of strategically important enterprises Motor Sich, special-purpose vehicle maker AutoKrAZ, oil firms Ukrnafta and Ukrtatnafta, and power transformer entity Zaporizhtransformator had been placed under the management of the Defence Ministry.
At a briefing also attended by the Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal and Defence Minister Oleksii Reznikov, Danilov said that “the seized assets have gained the status of military property and their management has been transferred to the Ministry of Defence of Ukraine. On completion of military service, in accordance with the requirements of the law, the assets may be returned to the owners or their value will be reimbursed.”
The intervention takes the companies out of the hands of some of the country’s richest men. The companies are partially state-owned but also linked to tycoons such as Ihor Kolomoisky, Kostiantyn Zhevaho, and, in the case of Motor Sich, Vyacheslav Bohuslayev, who was arrested in October and charged with treason on suspicion of collaborating with Russia.
Boguslayev, who owned Motor Sich until recently, was instrumental in moves to sell the Ukrainian manufacturer to dubious Chinese investors between 2017 and 2021, but due to a number of violations including of antimonopoly laws, on the advice of the United States, and after a raid by Ukraine’s security service, Motor Sich’s shares were eventually blocked.
Taking full control of the five strategic companies is necessary to help meet the defence sector’s “urgent needs” during the war, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said. Reznikov stressed at the briefing: “This is not nationalisation, this is a direct takeover of assets during wartime. They are totally different legal forms,” adding that the assets can be returned or compensated for after martial law ends.
Before the war, Motor Sich Airlines operated scheduled and charter passenger and cargo services including scheduled routes linking Kyiv Igor Sikorsky with Lviv, Odesa, and Zaporizhzhia, as well as Zaporizhzhia with Minsk National. According to the Ukrainian aircraft register, it operates one An-140, two An-12s, three An-24RVs, one An-74TK-200, one Yak-18T, and three Yak-40s, as well as a fleet of eight Mil Helicopters.
