Bulgaria refused to allow a plane carrying the Russian delegation to the OSCE summit to pass through its airspace. The reason was the presence on board of the official representative of the Russian Foreign Ministry, Maria Zakharova.
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The Russian delegation led by Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov went to the OSCE summit, which will be held in Skopje on November 30 and December 1. At first, the Bulgarian Foreign Ministry allowed a Russian plane to fly over the country’s territory, making an exception for the sanctioned Lavrov and his escort. No such exception was made for Zakharova.
The permission does not apply to the Director of the Information and Press Department of the Russian Foreign Ministry, Maria Zakharova, who appears on the list of sanctions, in accordance with current EU law, the Bulgarian side said in a statement.
As a result, Lavrov had to fly to North Macedonia along a longer route – through Turkey and Greece. As the delegation said, they received permission to fly over from Greece.
Vladimir Putin’s press secretary Dmitry Peskov called Bulgaria’s position absurd. Zakharova herself commented on the ban.
The evil stupidity of the Russophobes reached the point that for the first time in our history, the official authorities banned not an airplane, but a person on the airplane from being in the sky – this is what was written in the official note of the Bulgarian Foreign Ministry: an airplane can fly over Bulgaria, but Maria Zakharova cannot fly in an airplane, – she wrote in her telegram channel.
Source: Racurs
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