US Military Aircraft Lands In Moscow, Kremlin Claims They Had No Idea
The flight had left from the US Air Force's Joint Base Andrews in Maryland on Sunday afternoon just before 5 pm ET, Flightradar24 data showed. The base is the primary military facility that is used by the US president and senior officials for official air travel.
On Tuesday, a US military transport plane, a Boeing C-17 Globemaster III, touched down at Moscow's Vnukovo Airport, according to data from flight tracking service Flightradar24. The aircraft, registered in the US with the tail number 07-7181, flew directly from Riga, Latvia, and touched down at the Moscow airport around 9:00 a.m. local time. Unverified footage on X/Twitter seems to capture the plane's approach over a Russian town near the airport.
The C-17 Globemaster III, which has a history of flights from Camp Springs, Maryland, home to Joint Base Andrews, where aircraft for President Biden's use are stationed, arrived in Riga on August 23 from the US Camp Springs airbase near Washington, DC. Flightradar24 data confirmed this information. The Kremlin has not yet provided any information regarding the plane's visit, leaving it unclear whether the aircraft carried cargo or passengers.
The arrival of the US military plane marks the first direct flight by a US aircraft to Russia since January. The last such visit was in January this year, during which special envoys Steven Witkoff and Jared Kushner embarked on a journey to Moscow to engage in peace talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin concerning the ongoing conflict in Ukraine.
The Kremlin had previously stated that they lacked any information about another visit to Moscow by Kushner and Witkoff, as the discussions between the US and Russia on the Ukraine situation have largely stalled.
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