Owner of stranded Russian cargo plane fights to get it back from Pearson Airport in Mississauga, Ontario

A huge Russian-owned cargo plane seized last year by the Canadian government remains stranded at Pearson Airport in Mississauga while the airline reportedly fights in court to have the jet returned.

The Antonov An-124 aircraft, the world’s largest production cargo plane, has been on the tarmac at Pearson since Feb. 27, 2022, shortly after the Russian invasion of Ukraine and subsequent closing of Canadian airspace to all Russian-owned planes.

For two years (as of next Tuesday), the immobile jet has been an object of curiosity to drivers who can easily spot the massive aircraft from Highway 427 as they pass the airport. It has become almost a fixture on the tarmac at Canada’s biggest and busiest airport.

Russia’s Volga-Dnepr Airlines, to which the aircraft is registered, is now suing the Canadian government as it seeks to show Ottawa’s sanctions against it are invalid, the Wall Street Journal recently reported.

The legal tussle playing out in federal court could in relatively short order determine once and for all the fate of the aircraft.

Volga-Dnepr reportedly approached Ottawa last year to begin discussions about having the cargo plane returned after it had been seized by the Canadian government in late spring 2023.

Ottawa had earlier imposed sanctions on the airline.

After the Canadian government seized the aircraft last year, it then revealed its intention to deliver it to Ukraine as part of an aid package.

During an unannounced visit to Kyiv at that time to show Canada’s support for Ukraine’s fight against Russia, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau told Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy that the seized Russian-registered plane would soon be given to his nation so it could never be used by Russia again.

The Russian cargo aircraft landed at Pearson on the morning of Feb. 27, 2022, just before the Canadian government declared the country’s airspace closed to all Russian-owned planes in the wake of the invasion.

The plane was reportedly bringing a shipment of COVID-19 test kits from China to Pearson via Russia and then Anchorage, Alaska, where it apparently stopped for refuelling just before its landing in Mississauga.