Bombardier, Airbus get exemptions from Canadian sanctions on Russian titanium

Canada is the first Western government to ban Russian supplies of titanium as part of a package to mark the second anniversary of Russia's Ukraine invasion in February.

Bombardier on Thursday became the latest planemaker to disclose an exemption from Canadian sanctions on Russian titanium, as Canada defended its decision to grant a partial reprieve from recent measures imposed over the war in Ukraine.

On Tuesday, Reuters first reported that Airbus had won a waiver from a new Canadian ban on Russian titanium, weeks after Ottawa added supplier VSMPO-AVISMA to a list of entities banned for alleged ties to Russia’s military-industrial complex.

Canada is the first Western government to ban Russian supplies of the strategic metal as part of a package to mark the second anniversary of Russia’s Ukraine invasion in February.

VSMPO has for years been a critical supplier of titanium, which is prized for its strength relative to its weight.

Traditional customers included most Western planemakers including Bombardier at a time when it was developing the CSeries passenger jet, which it sold to Airbus in 2018.

Now purely a manufacturer of business jets, Bombardier no longer purchases Russian titanium directly. But some of its suppliers do, so the company needed an exemption, CEO Eric Martel said during a quarterly results presentation.

“We did work with the government and we did work also with all our supplier base to make sure we were doing the right thing. But at the same time we needed to ensure you know that we keep running our factories,” he told reporters.

Canada’s decision to row back on part of the ban for a limited period has been criticized by Ukraine’s ambassador to Canada, who on Wednesday called the Airbus waiver “disturbing.”