Founder of Russia’s largest cargo airline escalates fight with Ottawa over sanctions as jet racks up fees at Pearson

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Being placed on the sanctions list prevents the businessman and the company from conducting business in Canada or with Canadians.

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The airline’s objection to their listing said they are a “peaceful carrier” and that Isaykin had divested his role as majority shareholder and resigned his position as chairman. It said it is not owned by the Russian government, nor involved in Russian politics or war efforts, and not close to the government.

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Isaykin was added to the sanctions list at the same time as the airline, on April 5, 2023.

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A few months later, he asked to be taken off the list on the grounds that he no longer had any ownership or involvement with the airline. Isaykin said that he is not close to the Russian government and did not provide military services to Russia.

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“I confirm that neither I nor any of the companies that form part of the Volga-Dnepr Group provide any aviation service to the Wagner Group or otherwise in relation to the military operations in Ukraine,” Isaykin said in a sworn statement in the court record.

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The Wagner Group was a notorious mercenary organization with close ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin and heavily involved in the fighting in Ukraine. It was widely seen internationally as doing much of Russia’s dirty work.

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Alexey Isaykin in 2006. Photo by Ted Jacob/Calgary Herald

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Last October, the Minister of Foreign Affairs at the time, Mélanie Joly, declined to lift sanctions from him or the airline.

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Joly wrote that Isaykin was the “majority shareholder of the Volga-Dnepr Group and its subsidiaries, and actively involved in the management of the Volga-Dnepr Group when its subsidiaries benefited from subsidies from the Russian government and were awarded contracts to assist with activities intended to ease or otherwise circumvent the effects of sanctions imposed against Russia by Canada and its partners.”

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She said the airline helped mitigate the impacts of sanctions on Russia’s supply chain.

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As such, he “engaged in activities that directly or indirectly facilitate, support, provide funding for or contribute to a violation or attempted violation of the sovereignty or territorial integrity of Ukraine,” Joly wrote.

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Joly said his transfer of ownership months after he was listed was a sanctions evasion tactic.

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Isaykin asked the Federal Court to intervene in Joly’s decision in November 2024, claiming the decision was unreasonable and procedurally unfair.

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He complained that all documentation on him and the airline was not given to Joly when she was making her decision. He said evidence of the airline’s role in humanitarian aid, such as delivering masks, COVID testing kits and vaccines during the pandemic — including vaccines for the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund — was not provided to her by government officials. The plane was delivering COVID test kits to Canada during the pandemic when it landed in Toronto and became stranded.

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He said that information could have changed the decision. The government argued that while the specific documents weren’t given to Joly, the information in them was summarized for her.

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Similar arguments were made by the airline in its motion for a judicial review and the two cases were heard together at a five-hour hearing in April.

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Justice Ann Marie McDonald ruled in August on both cases that the procedural fairness protection required in such government decisions was minimal and that Parliament granted the minister wide latitude when passing the sanction regulations.