Reuters: Putin plane makes detour avoiding Poland, Baltics on way to G-20

Published July 8, 2017 at 5:52 pm

Russia's President Vladimir Putin speaks during the final press conference on the second day of the G20 Summit in Hamburg, Germany, July 8. Leaders of the world's top economies gather from July 7 to 8, in Germany for likely the stormiest G20 summit in years, with disagreements ranging from wars to climate change and global trade.

Photo by AFP

A plane carrying Russian President Vladimir Putin to the G20 summit in Germany made a detour of about 500 km (300 miles) to avoid flying over NATO members Poland or the Baltic states, data from a flight tracker showed.

According to the FlightRadar24 website, a Russian government jet flying from Moscow to Hamburg on Thursday deviated from the direct route over Belarus and Poland, which was once a Soviet bloc state but joined the Western military alliance after the fall of communism.