Russian cargo plane carried out return trip to EU despite sanctions

Mykhaylo Tkach – Saturday, 19 March 2022, 18:07

Despite the EU sanctions, a Russian cargo plane flew from Moscow to Slovakia and returned to Russia.

Source: Public online radar data

Details: On 17 March, a cargo aircraft with Russian registration number RA-76511 and belonging to a Russian cargo company Volga-Dnepr flew from Moscow to Bratislava, the capital of Slovakia, and is now returning to Moscow.

On 28 February, Dmytro Kuleba, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine, reported that 32 countries, including Slovakia, had closed the skies to Russian planes and airlines.

Volga-Dnepr is the largest Russian cargo airline operating the world’s largest fleet of An-124 (Ruslan) aircraft.

On 17 March, Deutsche Welle reported – citing the Russian publication Komersant – that Volga-Dnepr planes completely ceased all flights.

The publication stressed that this was related to the regulator’s ban on the activities of two European companies belonging to the Volga-Dnepr group and founded by Russian citizen Alexey Isaykin.

It remains unknown how the Russian plane managed to circumvent the EU sanctions and carry out the flight from the Russian capital to Slovakia.