In June 2024, the Trap Aggressor project asked the Austrian company Diamond Aircraft to provide information about the buyers of two AE-300 E4-A engines manufactured by the company, indicating unique serial numbers.
The engines of this type were identified by Trap Aggressor analysts in a Russian tender in 2024, as a result of which the Ural Civil Aviation Plant (UCAP) supplied two engines of this type to the Ulyanovsk Civil Aviation Institute for a total of 510 thousand euros.
UCAP is under US, EU and Ukrainian sanctions, and in Russia, in addition to manufacturing and repairing aircraft and components for it, the plant assembles and develops UAVs for the Russian armed forces, including Forpost and Zastava drones. Since 2023, the Ulyanovsk Institute of Civil Aviation, which announced a tender for Austrian engines in 2024, has been training UAV engineers.
According to trade databases, the UCAP imported at least two identical Austrian engines to Russia in 2023 from the Chinese company Ningbo Peak Cloud Import And Export Co. At the same time, Diamond Aircraft itself is also owned by the Chinese holding company Wanfeng Auto Holding Group.
Trap Aggressor asked Diamond Aircraft to inform us which company bought these two engines with unique serial numbers, which later ended up in Russia. Diamond Aircraft responded that it was conducting an internal investigation, but two months later it failed to inform Trap Aggressor of its findings.
According to the Austrian media outlet Kronen Zeitung, the Austrian State Security and Intelligence Directorate has launched a preliminary investigation, possibly, into the supply of Diamond Aircraft products to Russia.