Was “Putin’s cellist” in this machine?

class=”sc-97fd9fa8-0 jNFKxv”>

Since the outbreak of war in Ukraine, Russian airspace has been a restricted area for airlines. Many Western countries have also closed their airspace to Russian-registered aircraft.

Now a flight from Germany to Russia is fueling speculation. Last Saturday, a private plane departed from Frankfurt bound for Moscow. Who was on board the Bombardier Challenger 604 and what was the reason for the flight?

The plane took off after an hour

According to the Flightradar online service, the plane took off from Frankfurt on Saturday afternoon and landed at Moscow’s Vnukovo airport at 5:27 p.m. local time. The trip turned out to be a short one. Because barely an hour later, the plane with the registration D-AFAA left for Germany. It finally landed in Nuremberg at 7:14 PM.

Now it’s a mystery who might have been aboard the machine. Investigative journalist Christo Grozev (53) of research network Bellingcat writes that it could be the Russian cellist and conductor Sergei Roldugin (71). This is a childhood friend of Vladimir Putin (70) and is therefore also called “Putin’s cellist”. It is even said that he is godfather to Putin’s daughter.

Roldugin also comes into play again and again when it comes to Putin’s asset management. However, this is not always completely legal. At least since the so-called Panama Paper revelations, he has been known to own many shell companies abroad.

Airplane with medical equipment

The aircraft of the airline FAI Aviation Group must therefore be a machine used for emergency patients. These can be taken care of on board thanks to medical equipment.

More and more voices on Twitter suspect that the plane was used because of a medical emergency. This would at least explain why all countries involved would have given permission to fly over.

The Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny (46) was also flown to Germany with such a model in the summer of 2020 after being poisoned in Russia with the nerve agent Novichok. (ceded)

Source: Blick