Bulgaria is ready to provide its airspace for Putin's flight to Budapest

Bulgaria will allow an aircraft with Vladimir Putin to fly through its airspace to facilitate the planned meeting between the Russian dictator and the US president Donald Trump in the Hungarian capital Budapest. This was stated by the head of Bulgarian diplomacy, Georg Georgiev, on the sidelines of a meeting of EU foreign ministers in Luxembourg, reports media Euractiv.

"When efforts are made to achieve peace, if the condition for this is to have such a meeting, it is most logical that such a meeting should be mediated in [all] possible ways," the official said.

Georgiev added: "How is it proposed to hold the meeting if one of the participants cannot get to it?"

The minister also confirmed that Moscow has not yet submitted a request for Putin's plane to fly over the territory of Bulgaria.

The state does not share a border with Hungary, but both countries border Serbia, which has "strong historic links with Moscow," and a route through Bulgaria would significantly reduce the Russian dictator's flight time, the media notes.

The only other route that does not involve flying over EU or Ukrainian airspace involves flying over the Mediterranean Sea and then Montenegro or Albania before reaching Budapest via Serbia.

Bulgaria and Hungary are currently members of the International Criminal Court, which issued an arrest warrant for Putin for his involvement in the deportation of Ukrainian children during the war.

However, in April 2025, Hungary announced its withdrawal from the ICC, which will come into force in June next year.

• Earlier, a spokeswoman for the European Commission confirmed that Putin would be able to attend talks with Trump: although the assets of the dictator and his head of diplomacy, Lavrov, were frozen, they are not prohibited from traveling to the EU. The official also said that each country in the bloc could decide to derogate from the sanctions that prohibit Russian civilian aircraft from flying over them.
• Meanwhile, an unnamed European diplomat told RMF24 that in Poland considers it unlikely that the Russian dictator will decide to fly over their territory to meet with the US president.