More than 40 aviation leasing firms, locked in a battle with insurers over who should bear up to $10 billion in costs for 400 jets stuck in Russia, are urging the High Court of Justice to allow a reinsurance dispute to be heard in London rather than Moscow, Reuters news agency reports.

The High Court of Justice in London, together with the Court of Appeal and the Crown Court, are the senior courts of England and Wales.

Lessors have not received any insurance payments for planes stranded following sanctions on Russia, and are suing insurers across several jurisdictions, including London.

London's High Court is due to hear five cases next year involving lessors over what are known as contingent insurance policies, Reuters said.

But lessors are separately challenging the jurisdiction for reinsurance disputes.

In the reinsurance cases, Russian airlines leased the planes through the international lessors and insured them through Russian insurers.

Those policies were then reinsured through global firms such as AIG and Lloyd's of London, Reuters reported. Lessors were also covered by these policies.

The reinsurers say these claims should be heard in Russia because jurisdiction clauses in the reinsurance policies name Russian courts for any dispute, according to court documents submitted for a case management hearing on Friday.

But the lessors, including AerCap and Carlyle Aviation Partners say it will not be possible to get "substantial justice" in Russia, according to court documents cited by Reuters.

"To ... insist the cases should be heard in Moscow is not only completely unworkable given the grave situation that exists today, it is also a gross exploitation of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and further avoids paying out on legitimate claims,” a spokesman for Carlyle said in an emailed statement to Reuters.

A legal source cited Russia's decision to call its invasion of Ukraine a "special military operation" rather than a war. Some of the reinsurance claims are for war risk.

Sanctions would also make getting legal experts to Russia for any trial difficult, the source told Reuters.

Lessors and Russian airlines are in talks about selling the lessors' stranded jets to the airlines to resolve the dispute more quickly.

Such a deal should be possible under the current European Union sanctions regime, a legal source said, adding that 60 to 70 cents to the dollar might be a level at which such a commercial deal could be agreed.