Can Putin's 'Flying Kremlin' travel through EU airspace to Budapest?

The summit has not been set in stone, but if Russia’s Vladimir Putin does go to Budapest to meet US President Trump in the next two weeks, he would need to clear a few hurdles first.

When Putin travelled to Alaska for his Anchorage summit in August, the US granted special permission for the presidential plane – a modified Ilyushin Il-96 airliner dubbed the “Flying Kremlin” that has four engines and is bristling with defence systems.

Russian planes are banned from US airspace, and from EU airspace too. So if Putin does fly to Budapest he would need special dispensation if he decided to fly over an EU member state.

It is perfectly possible, but landlocked Hungary is not the easiest destination to get to for a Russian president who rarely sets foot abroad and has not travelled to the EU for years.

“For now, of course, it’s not clear,” says Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov. “What we do have is the willingness of the presidents to hold such a meeting.”

Days after Putin ordered Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the EU froze the assets of both its leader and Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.

A blanket ban was also imposed on all Russian aircraft flying through the airspace of all 27 EU countries. Hungary and many of its neighbours are Nato member states too.

Putin has also been accused by the International Criminal Court (ICC) of war crimes of unlawfully deporting and transferring of Ukrainian children to Russia.

So there are complications, although Hungary believes they can all be sorted out. Hungary is in the process of pulling out of the ICC anyway.

Putin and Hungary’s Viktor Orban, probably his closest ally in the EU, have already discussed the planned summit over the phone, and Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto has told reporters “we will of course ensure that he can enter Hungary, hold successful talks here, and then return home”.

The EU is unlikely to create obstacles either.

Its executive commission has said any meeting that moves forward “a just and lasting peace for Ukraine” is welcome and it supports President Trump’s efforts towards that.

One of the main drivers for its latest proposed sanctions on Russia – the 19th package so far – is to bring the Russians to the negotiating table, it says. And it points out there’s no travel ban on Putin, only an asset freeze.

The biggest sticking point is how Russia’s leader will fly from Moscow to Budapest. Clearly he will not be buying an Air Serbia ticket to Belgrade and catching the train to Hungary, which may be the most direct route to take.

He will want his Il-96 plane to guarantee his safety, but that will probably mean using the airspace of an EU and Nato member state and obtaining permission to break the EU’s ban on Russian planes.

European Commission spokeswoman Anitta Hipper said on Friday that “in terms of the direction of travel, member states can give derogations but it must be given by member states individually”.

Nato has also referred the issue to respective national authorities, and as Trump is involved they may acquiesce.

Even with dispensation, a look at the map shows Putin may have to take a circuitous route. Ukraine is out of the question, and probably Poland too because of Warsaw’s icy relations with Moscow.

Perhaps the most direct route goes via the eastern coast of the Black Sea and Turkey, through Bulgaria and either Serbia or Romania into Hungary.

Serbia’s president, Aleksandar Vucic, knows Putin well and Air Serbia has direct flights to Moscow over EU airspace. Serbia is a candidate to join the EU but is not a member.

It is the EU countries, Bulgaria or perhaps Romania, that would need to give consent, and they would have to escort Putin’s plane through their airspace.

Romania has what is set to become the biggest Nato base in Europe, and Bulgaria is also building a Nato base as part of efforts to shore up the defensive alliance’s eastern flank.

A spokesperson in Bucharest told the BBC the issues were only subjects of speculation at the moment and that “Romania has not received a request for overflight from the Russian Federation to date”.

The BBC has also approached Bulgaria‘s foreign ministry for comment.

If Putin wants to play it even more safely, he could fly via Turkey, around the south coast of Greece and then up through Montenegrin airspace before going over Serbia. But it is a far longer route.

Budapest is not then the easiest of venues, even if it works very well for Viktor Orban, who has long had good relations with both Putin and Donald Trump.

“It’s a leader that we like,” said Trump on Friday, “he likes him, I like him.”

A high-profile international summit will do Orban no harm at all, as he is trailing in the polls before elections next spring.

Within hours of Budapest being named as a venue, Orban was on the phone to Putin and declared on his Facebook page: “Preparations are in full swing!”

Orban has little time for the EU’s backing of Ukraine and he was quick to make clear Brussels would have nothing to do with the talks.

“Since the EU is pro-war, it is logical that it will be left out of this peace process,” he told Hungarian radio on Friday.

European leaders will have other ideas when they see him at next week’s summit in Brussels next week.