Air Serbia flight to Moscow turns back over Lithuania; Vulin named by media

The flight turns back

An Air Serbia flight that left Belgrade on the evening of Tuesday, 3 November, bound for Moscow, turned around over Lithuania and landed back at Nikola Tesla airport. Der Standard called it the scheduled evening service to Moscow and reported that the aircraft turned back about an hour before reaching its destination. TVP Info cited Flightradar24 data showing the turn roughly halfway along the route. Air Serbia said airport authorities had told it that one passenger needed additional security checks, and that it followed their instructions and all applicable procedures.

Who was on board

Serbian media, cited by Der Standard, identified the passenger as Aleksandar Vulin. Vulin served as defence minister from 2018 to 2020 and as interior minister until October 2022, then headed counterintelligence until November 2023 and later became deputy prime minister in the outgoing government. Two other men were on the flight: Nenad Popović, a businessman sanctioned by the United States, and Dušan Bajatović, director of the state gas company Srbijagas and Russia's honorary consul in Novi Sad. TVP Info said the three were associates of former president Aleksandar Vučić, whose camp lost the elections.

Vulin's account

Vulin rejected reports that he had avoided screening, calling them lies and part of a political campaign. He said he had not flown to Moscow as a tourist and that he travelled on official business. Speaking by phone to TV Informer, he said the episode was an attempt to negotiate with him politically, and that he was going to Moscow to discuss a gas supply agreement for Serbia. He also said he had slept on the plane, and that after waking he was told they were in Belgrade. After going through the same security procedure as the other passengers, he said, he was waiting to be allowed back on board. He also denied claims by other politicians on X that he had been carrying large amounts of cash and gold. TVP Info reported that the crew found he had boarded without passing screening and that an unidentified person had helped him get past the gates, while Nova.rs reported that a security official saw the breach on surveillance cameras and ordered the aircraft back.

Security checks and the return

After landing in Belgrade, passengers and their bags went through screening under the procedure used for a potential bomb threat, according to N1 sources. Nothing was found, and the aircraft flew back to Moscow. BBC asked Belgrade's Nikola Tesla airport what the additional checks involved, who carried them out and what they found, but received no answer. The airport operator and security services were said to be responsible for those procedures. Bojana Mirković, a professor at the Faculty of Transport in Belgrade, called the situation very unusual and said that without details of the checks, the procedures were hard to judge. She noted that about a month before this flight, take-off at the airport was temporarily halted after a passenger failed to clear all security controls.

Arrival in Moscow

The three men eventually reached Moscow on the morning of 4 November after a delay of several hours, according to BBC reporting. Why the aircraft was first turned back remained unclear in that reporting. Air Serbia continues to operate regular flights to Moscow and other Russian cities, and Serbia has not imposed sanctions on Moscow, although it condemned the 2022 invasion of Ukraine. The timeline below sets out the sequence of events as the sources describe it.