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Russian defence minister’s plane back to Moscow after Poland opens air space

He returned to Moscow on the same flight

MOSCOW, August 30, /ITAR-TASS/. Russian Defence Minister Sergey Shoigu’s plane has safely returned to Moscow after Poland gave permission to cross its airspace, a correspondent of the Rossiya-24 round-the-clock TV news channel has reported. He returned to Moscow on the same flight.

On Friday, Shoigu attended memorable ceremonies in Banska Bystrica on the occasion of the 70th anniversary of the Slovak national uprising. Later in the day on the way back home his plane had to return to Bratislava when Poland denied passage through its airspace.

As Polish armed forces spokesman Piotr Walatek has explained to ITAR-TASS, the pilot had declared the flight as a military one.

“Earlier (on the way to Slovakia - TASS) the plane crossed Polish airspace as a civilian one and no prior consent had to be obtained. On the way back the pilot declared the flight as a military one. According to the established procedures this requires an advance request. We had none from the Russian side,” Walatek said.

Later, the status of Shoigu’s flight was reverted to civilian and Poland agreed to open its airspace.