An Air Serbia plane that took off from Belgrade’s Nikola Tesla Airport for Moscow this evening, carrying Socialist Movement leader Aleksandar Vulin, Srbijagas Director Dušan Bajatović and Serbian People’s Party leader Nenad Popović, was turned back to Belgrade after reaching southern Lithuania, reportedly for security reasons.
Flight JU134 took off from Belgrade at 6:48 p.m., but an order was issued during the journey for the aircraft to return to its departure airport. The order was issued by the airport’s director of corporate security.
Earlier in the day, Democratic Party President Srđan Milivojević spoke out, posting a question on the social media platform X about the evening flight to the Russian capital.
“And who is fleeing to Moscow on the 6:30 p.m. flight tonight?” Milivojević wrote.
Vulin Slept Through the Whole Thing, Woke Up in Belgrade
Aleksandar Vulin appeared live on Informer TV last night after the Air Serbia flight to Moscow was turned back to Belgrade. Asked to comment on what had happened in the air and the plane’s return, he said:
“Nobody told us anything. We simply woke up, to be honest, I had fallen asleep. I was sleeping on the plane, I wake up, and they tell us: ‘You’re in Belgrade.’ How are we in Belgrade? When we got outside, I saw police and special forces gathered… I asked, ‘Have you come for me?’”
Vulin went on to describe how he went through the repeated security procedures alongside the other passengers and expressed suspicion that someone was trying to prevent him from traveling to Moscow, emphasizing that nothing illegal had been found on him.
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He also described the incident as “an act of harassment and an attempt at a political showdown with him,” accusing the airport’s head of security of wanting to “prove himself to the new authorities.” He added that he was traveling to Moscow on official business to negotiate an extension of Serbia’s gas agreement. However, his fellow passenger Dušan Bajatović later stressed in a statement to N1 that he was the only one traveling to Moscow for negotiations with Russia over gas supplies, and that Aleksandar Vulin and the other minister on the plane, Nenad Popović, were not part of those negotiations.
Bajatović: I Was Going to Negotiate with the Russians, I Don’t Know Where Vulin and Popović Were Headed
Srbijagas Director Dušan Bajatović told N1 that, following the plane’s unplanned return to Belgrade, all passengers and their luggage underwent a thorough security inspection.
Although Aleksandar Vulin and Nenad Popović were also on the plane, Bajatović says he does not know the reasons for their trip, while, as he points out, his own journey to Russia was related to problems with gas supplies and payment transactions following the Alta Bank case.
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“I don’t see Mr. Popović at the moment, to tell you the truth. We didn’t leave together,” he stressed, adding that he did not know Vulin’s and Popović’s reasons for traveling to Moscow.
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