A student tracks the planes of Russian oligarchs and Vladimir Putin

Despite the war in Ukraine and harsh economic sanctions against Russia, the Russian oligarchs continue to criss-cross the skies aboard their private jets in order to shelter what they can salvage from probable seizures. An American student has created a Twitter account that tracks their movements in real time.

While the russian troops are evolving in Ukraine in a war that promises to be long, the effects of strong economic sanctions are beginning to be felt on the side of Russia. The first targets are the Russian oligarchs, billionaires who are currently moving their giant yachts and other assets to try to escape seizures. If the Airlines companies Russians are grounded due to being banned from landing on the ground of many countries, these Russian billionaires are still criss-crossing the world aboard their private jets.

It must be said that the latter are often registered abroad and can override the prohibitions. At the moment, they are very active in the skies and since Sunday, one can follow their comings and goings in real time on a Twitter account called Oliarch Jets. The flow is totally automated and has already noted several thefts ofaircraft owned by Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich. Among them is a trip to helicopter in the Caribbean on Monday.

A319s used as private jets

This tracker targeting the oligarchs was created by Jack Sweeney, a 19-year-old student who had already made headlines by having also created in June 2020 a Twitter account allowing to follow the aerial peregrinations of the private jet ofElon Muskthe boss of SpaceX and Tesla. Annoyed by this follow-up, the latter had offered to give him 5,000 dollars to close this account which he considered a risk to his security.

You should know that the commercial flight data are not confidential. They are accessible to the public through several platforms which format the data collected by the transponders of the devices. Just as for the movements ofElon Muskthe student has created bots that come specifically to retrieve data from aircraft owned by the oligarchs.

But, on Russian soil, unlike the planes of the American tycoon, the flight data of the oligarchs’ jets is less precise given that air navigation information is more difficult to access on this territory. According to the statements, it appears that instead of business jets, several of these billionaires sometimes have delusions of grandeur and use planes usually intended for commercial flights, such as Airbus A319 or Boeing 787s.