Slovakia’s Defense Ministry Under Fire for Jets Connected to Kazakh Dictator’s Family
Before Christmas, Slovakia’s Ministry of Defense bought two planes, both of which had previously served as private jets for the wealthy. One was used by the daughter of long-time Kazakh dictator Nursultan Nazarbayev. However, the Slovak ministry bought them from a Florida company. That company is represented in Eastern Europe by a man the Investigative Center of Ján Kuciak (ICJK)fkucaik previously wrote about in connection with the Grupo America drug gang. The investigation has found that the Florida company violates Slovak law because it did not disclose its true owners in the state register, in which every company doing business with the public sector must enter. According to lawyer Andrej Leontiev, the ministry should therefore consider suspending the contracts or reviewing their validity.
On February 18, 2025, a Bombardier 5000 luxury jet landed at Bratislava Airport. The twelve-year-old machine had been purchased by the Ministry of Defense for a little more than 23 million dollars. A new one costs between 60 and 70 million dollars, depending on the equipment.
The purchase of the luxury vehicle, which will most likely serve politicians, at a time of consolidation and tax increases was criticized by opposition parties PS (Progressive Slovakia) and SLOVENSKO (Movement Slovakia). The ministry claimed that it was a good price and compared it to the price of a used car. The ministry bought the two aircraft for a total of nearly $48 million.
“Some call it luxurious, but of all the planes that are there, it has the least of those things that some people consider as fancy,” Minister of Defense Robert Kaliňák said, adding that the planes will be rebuilt and should receive medical stretchers, equipment for transporting patients in a serious condition, and other, as of yet unspecified, “military equipment”.
The findings of the Investigative Centre of Ján Kuciak show that planes are interesting not only because of their luxurious interiors, but because of their history: the second one, with the registration 9H-AVA, which has not yet arrived in Slovakia and has been parked at the Bombardier service center near London since February, arrived from Kazakhstan. According to our findings, it previously belonged to the family of the former Kazakh dictator Nursultan Nazarbayev.
However, it was not sold to the Ministry of Defense by Nazabaev or any of the companies associated with him. The ministry bought both aircraft from United Wings International, registered in Florida. This company seems to be an intermediary of sorts. It is not known who is actually behind it. The Florida business register only lists the name of the company’s managing director, Eduardo Marquez.
Even though it has done almost 48 million dollars worth of business with Slovakia, it is not listed in the Slovak Register of Public Sector Partners (RPVS/RPSP), which is a special public register in which both natural persons and business entities trading with Slovak public sector must be registered. Attorney Andrej Leontiev of TaylorWessing sees no reason why it should be any different in the case of the Florida company. According to the law, any company, even a foreign one, that does business with the state must reveal its true owners — UBOs — in the RPVS.
The situation creates a legal paradox which, according to Leontiev, should not even have happened as the Ministry should not have signed the contract before the Florida company registers. Leontiev suggested that, given that the law was broken, two possible avenues could now be taken. The first is that, even if the contract is valid, the Ministry of Defense has the right to suspend it (by i.e. stopping payments) and can threaten to withdraw from the contract, thus forcing the business partner to fulfill its obligation to register.
The second, more controversial interpretation of the law, would, according to Leontiev, consider the contract void from the outset because it runs afoul of the law. In either case, however, action would have to be taken by the Department of Defense, which did not respond to our inquiry about whether it would suspend the contracts because of United Wings International’s lack of registration.
Another interesting fact about United Wings International is the person listed on their website as its representative for Eastern Europe: Dražen Mikašinovič. ICJK wrote about him back in 2020, when he appeared in the tangle of people and companies around a Serbian drug gang known as Group America.
After we reached out about the aircraft contract, Mikašinovič’s name disappeared from the United Wings International website.
We called Drazen Mikašinovič on the Slovak phone number from the United Wings International website. He picked up and confirmed his identity, but he didn’t want to talk to us. “Mr. Mikašinovič is not and never has been an owner or co-owner of the above-mentioned foreign company. It is clear from the above that he is unable to provide relevant answers to the above questions. In order to obtain answers to these questions, please contact directly the above-mentioned company United Wings International,” his attorney Ondrej Ďuraj later wrote to us.
United Wings International has also sent us a response through their attorney Gerardo Vazquez. He claims that “Mr. Dražen Mikašinovič has never been an owner, shareholder, officer, director, or held any decision-making role within the company—at any time, in any capacity. Any claim suggesting otherwise is categorically false.”
The website of the company that did a $48 million deal with the state on 2/27/2025 and after our questions. Drazen Mikašinovič’s name has disappeared. Source: https://www.unitedwingsaero.com/contact/
United Wings International did not respond to questions about the sale of the two aircraft to the Department of Defense, saying it could not do so because of strict U.S. and European regulations that require it to maintain “confidentiality, security, and operational integrity.” It referred us to the Slovak authorities because, supposedly: “Any transactions involving these aircraft fall under Slovakia’s Public Procurement Law, ensuring compliance with EU directives and transparency standards. These records remain the most accurate source of information,” Vazquez wrote.
It was not possible, however, to check these records, as no such records exist: the Slovak Ministry of Defence bought the aircraft before Christmas without a public tender. It quietly shared the news that it had bought them in a press release that was primarily about Slovakia joining the Czech Defence Ministry in buying unrelated Tatra trucks. The Slovak Ministry of Defence did not respond to our queries at all, continuing a growing Slovak government practice of ignoring and refusing to answer relevant and critical questions from independent media.
Kazakh elite evacuated by plane
Nursultan Nazarbayev had led Kazakhstan since it was established as an independent country in 1991. He was president until 2019, and his rule was characterized by corruption, inequality, and authoritarianism. Nazarbayev was often been labeled by both the domestic opposition and the international media as a dictator.
The majority of the population benefited little of the country’s mineral wealth. Pockets were lined for an exclusive circle of billionaires, including members of the Nazarbayev family. The situation didn’t change much with his resignation in 2019, per the findings from investigative journalists. Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, chosen by Nazarbayev, became the president, while Nazarbayev still controlled the state security council.
The “first president” of Kazakhstan and “leader of the nation” Nursultan Nazarbayev. Source Elbasy.kz
In early January 2022, protests against high fuel prices in western Kazakhstan spread across the country, and their scope and demands quickly widened. Protesters decided they also wanted political change. The slogan “Old man, leave!” was often heard at demonstrations.
President Tokayev took over Nazarbayev’s role as head of the Security Council. As it did not look safe for members of Nazarbayev’s inner circle, several of them boarded a private plane — registration number 9H-AVA — and flew to Kyrgyzstan that same day.
According to several articles from that period, the private jet was owned by the husband of Nazarbayev’s daughter Dinara, Timur Kulibayev. He remains an influential oligarch and oil prince of Kazakhstan.
Nazarbayev lost his title of “Elbasy” — father of the nation — after the protests. His son-in-law (Kulibayev) and his wife have lost hundreds of millions. But they ended up keeping most of their wealth; their joint fortune is now estimated at about $10 billion.
Before 2017, the luxury aircraft had an Isle of Man registration. It was owned by Triumph Aviation Inc. from the tax haven of the British Virgin Islands. Thanks to the Pandora Papers leak, we know that this firm is linked to another of Nazarbayev’s daughters, Dariga.
On March 18, 11 days after ICJK first published this article, United Wings International registered in the Slovak Register of Public Sector Partners (RPVS/RPSP), listing Eduardo Jose Marquez, a citizen of the U.S., as the sole owner of the company.
9H-AVA aircraft on July 11, 2022 in Antalya, Turkey. Source: Firat Cimenli.
From publicly available sources, it is not possible to tell who was the actual owner of the jet in recent years. Officially, it was owned by a private company and flew under Maltese registration. Although Malta is an EU Member State, it does not provide detailed information on the owners of the aircraft. Articles from 2022, as well as several posts on Russian flying enthusiasts’ forums from 2023, say that the aircraft with registration number 9H-AVA was used by Nazabaev’s son-in-law.
The private aircraft was still flying between Astana and Dubai in January 2025 after the signing of the contract with the Slovak Ministry of Defense— until it flew from Kazakhstan to London in mid-February. How and when it got to be owned by United Wings International, which sold it to the Slovak Ministry of Defense for $24.6 million, is unknown. Nor is it known when it will arrive in Slovakia.
The possibility that United Wings International is only a middleman in the deal is also indicated by the story of the second plane that Robert Kaliňák’s ministry bought before Christmas. The Bombardier 5000, with registration C-FDIL, was still listed in the offer of the Canadian company Aurora Jet on Wednesday, March 5, 2025 — which we know from Slovakia’s central register of contracts was also purchased through the same middleman, United Wings International.
However, about an hour after we sent our questions to the Canadian company, the plane disappeared from the webpage. In particular, we wanted to know why the plane was not sold to the Slovak Ministry of Defense directly, but through an intermediary, United Wings International. We did not receive a response.
In a Facebook post, the Canadian firm boasted that it had sold this particular aircraft to a “valued client.” The post makes it sound like the Canadian firm did the deal and makes no mention of a middleman. A week later, the plane landed at Bratislava’s airport.
Missing entry in the anti-corruption register
Another question still left unanswered is who is the real owner of United Wings International, which appears to be the middleman for the sale of the Kazakh and Canadian aircraft. The company, despite our various requests for comment and the various subsequent web page edits, is still not listed in the RPVS.
According to Leontiev, if the state does not try to resolve the situation, despite the fact that the company did not register in the RPVS and thus did not reveal who was really behind it at the time of the execution of the nearly $48 million worth of contracts, the state itself may be in violation of the law, which could lead to a fine of up to 100,000 euros for the public official who signed the contract. That would, however, also require the cooperation of state agencies, which are currently controlled by the same Smer government that agreed on the purchase.
It is therefore unlikely that we will learn anytime soon who ultimately benefited from the sale of the two exclusive jets, and whether some of the money ended up in the pockets of the Kazakh ex-dictator’s family.
The Slovak version of this story was published on ICJK.sk.
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Tomáš Madleňák is a Slovak journalist who has worked for the Investigative Center of Ján Kuciak since 2020. He is based in Bratislava.