Bulgaria will allow a plane carrying Vladimir Putin to pass through its airspace to facilitate the planned meeting between the Russian leader and Donald Trump in Budapest later this month, Foreign Minister Georg Georgiev said, quoted by European electronic media Euractive.
“When efforts are made to achieve peace, if the condition for this is to have such a meeting, it is most logical for it to be mediated by [всички] possible ways”, Georgiev told journalists on the sidelines of the meeting of the foreign ministers of the European Union in Luxembourg.
“How is it proposed to hold the meeting if one of the participants cannot attend it?” he added.
A Bulgarian representative confirmed that Moscow has not yet made a request for Putin’s plane to fly over the country.
Bulgaria does not border Hungary. Both Hungary and Bulgaria, however, border Serbia, which has strong historical ties to Moscow. Passing through Bulgaria on the way to Budapest would significantly shorten the duration of Putin’s flight.
The only other route that does not go through EU or Ukrainian airspace is over the Mediterranean Sea and then over Montenegro or Albania before reaching Budapest via Serbia, Juractiv said.
The summit, which was announced by Trump after a phone call with Putin last week and for which no date has yet been set, has caused mixed reactions among EU leaders, the media recalled.
The head of European diplomacy, Kaya Callas, and several Eastern and Central European countries criticized the scheduled meeting as excluding Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
But ministers from many western EU countries, including the Netherlands, Germany and France, expressed hesitant support for the meeting – the first face-to-face meeting between Trump and Putin since Alaska in August.
Hungary’s right-wing leader Viktor Orbán has repeatedly criticized EU support for Ukraine and has fostered strong ties with both Putin and Trump since becoming prime minister again in 2010.
Both Bulgaria and Hungary are currently members of the International Criminal Court, which issued an arrest warrant for Putin over his involvement in the deportation of Ukrainian children during the war.
However, in April this year, Hungary announced its withdrawal from the ICC, which will take effect from June 2026.
(BTA)
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