US export-import bank to provide ‘$339 million loan’ to Azerbaijani airline moving military cargo

RFE/RL has reported that the board of directors of the US government-owned Export-import bank (EXIM) ‘has approved a $339 million loan to the Azerbaijani airline Silk Way to purchase Boeing aircraft’. The article noted that Silk Way’s aircraft, ‘according to reputable media outlets, were involved in the transportation of weapons’ and that fact ‘did not prevent the American side from approving the loan’.

Silk Way, as noted by RFE/RL, is known ‘for transporting weapons to conflict zones’ and for its affiliation with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev.

The investigation was published on Friday, noting that an undisclosed number of aircraft would be delivered by the summer of 2026. They linked the relevant decision of the EXIM Bank published on 31 March.

Santander, a Spanish bank, and the American Private Export Finance Corporation (PEFCO) acted as loan guarantors, with Santander declining to comment to RFE/RL.

The loan transaction was led by several EXIM Bank stakeholders, including Cheryl Conlin, Senior Loan Officer at the Transportation Division, who in 2021 participated in a virtual forum organised by the US Embassy in Baku, during which US officials and businesspeople presented US technologies and financial capabilities in logistics.

The EXIM Bank also participated in COP29, which was held in Baku in November 2024.

The bank, as revealed by the Organised Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP), previously provided a loan to the Silk Way for the same purpose.

In 2014, through the EXIM Bank, the US government ‘awarded a $419.5 million loan guarantee to Silk Way Airlines to buy [...] three Boeing 747-8 Freighter airplanes’.

Three years later, an additional $1 billion contract was signed with Silk Way ‘for 10 more passenger planes, and plans to buy two more 747-8 Freighter airplanes’.

RFE/RL quoted another investigation published in 2022, this time from The Washington Post, revealing that ‘Pentagon officials persuaded Aliyev to open his country’s borders and airspace to critical US and NATO supply routes to Afghanistan’.

The media noted that in exchange, US officials ‘promised a closer diplomatic partnership with Aliyev and steered $369 million in defense contracts to Silk Way Airlines’.

RFE/RL, also quoting a report by the Armenian investigative outlet Hetq, noted that Silk Way, prior to and during the Second Nagorno-Karabakh War in 2020, as well as its final offensive to the region in 2023, made frequent flights from Israel, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

In an article published on 2 April, Hetq counted six such flights between January–March 2025 from Israel to Azerbaijan, highlighting the trend they observed of the intensity of the flights prior to Azerbaijani military attacks.

The US State Department did not respond to RFE/RL’s inquiry regarding the deal, while the Armenian Foreign Ministry responded that the relations with the US ‘are carried out in the format of a strategic partnership [...] and are not conditioned by bilateral cooperation between the United States and third countries.’In its own response to RFE/RL, the EXIM Bank, did not address whether other state bodies had submitted comments and observations regarding this transaction prior to the decision to lend to Silk Way.