Romanian authorities have prevented a plane carrying Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin, en route to Chisinau, from flying over the county’s territory, Russian Ambassador to Moldova Farit Mukhametshin told ‘Sputnik’ on Friday. It was a civilian plane carrying a Russian delegation to R. of Moldova for talks with President Igor Dodon.
The Romanian authorities did not allow a passenger jet carrying Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin to fly over Romania’s territory. The aircraft was flying to Chisinau,” Mukhametshin said.
According to the carrier, Romania has refused the entry of Russian S7 carrier plane into its airspace because Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin, who is on a sanctions list, was on board, sputniknews.com reports.
“Regular flight S7-157 on route from Moscow to Chisinau was prohibited from entering the Romanian airspace by the Romanian air traffic control under the pretext of a sanctioned person being on board,” the S7 company said.
According to the deputy prime minister himself, the decision of the Romanian authorities was a “demarche to the Moldovan president.”
“This is also a demarche against the Moldovan president,” Rogozin said.
The Russian official later said on Twitter that the Romanian authorities had endangered the lives of those on board of the plane. “Just wait for the response,” he added.
According to deschide.md, Rogozin posted a message on his Twitter account: “Romanian authorities have put in danger the passengers if the S7 flight, women and children. The fuel was enough only to reach Minsk. Just wait for a response, you bastards.”
Rogozin told TASS that “on Friday morning Dodon had discussed all details of the visit with Russia’s ambassador Farit Mukhametshin.”
“As a matter of fact, it was a demarche addressed to the Moldovan president,” Rogozin said.
He was to visit Chisinau for talks at Moldovan President Igor Dodon’s personal invitation. The next day he was to go to Bendery for special ceremonies on the occasion of the 25th anniversary of the peacemaking operation in the Dniester area. Romania’s authorities denied permission to Rogozin’s plane to cross the country’s airspace. Hungary, too, denied transit through its airspace and a stopover in Budapest, tass.com reports.
Moldova’s Prime Minister Pavel Filip, of the Democratic Party, which formed the ruling pro-European coalition, welcomed Rogozin’s visit but at the same time remarked that his arrival on board a military plane was impossible. He was speaking in the wake of media reports the Russian delegation was going to travel to Moldova using the Russian Defense Ministry’s military transport planes. Although Rogozin dismissed the rumor as “nonsense,” a group of Moldovan activists urged the authorities to declare Rogozin persona non grata and published an on-line message in support of that initiative.
MAE: Romania did not agree for the airplane to through its airspace
According to Romanian Foreign Ministry (MAE) representatives, Romania did not agree for the plane having onboard Russian Deputy PM Dmitry Rogozon to go through its airspace, adding that the reasons cannot be detailed.
However, sources say the decision was made on the basis on article 1 (1) of the decision 2014/145/PESC regarding restrictive measures against actions undermining or threatening territorial integrity, the sovereignty, the EU Member States take measures to ban the transit of the territory by individuals responsible for such actions. Dmitry Rogozin is on this list of banned officials.
In 2014 he was also banned from going through Romania’s airspace and announced later, on a social page, he would be back, this time aboard a bomber.
In December 2016, a plane that had onboard Russian deputy Prime Minister, Dmitry Rogozin, on route from Moscow to Chisinau, Republic of Moldova, had to cross Romania’s air space on its way to Hungary, after it couldn’t land in the Moldovan capital due to the fog.
Rogozin was banned from entering the European Union space, being on the list of the people facing sanctions due to the Ukraine crisis.
The Romanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs said at the time that the plane that flew the Russian deputy prime minister is a civil one, belonging to AEROFLOT and was carrying a regular flight, and the EU sanctions are not enforceable in that situation.