A Ukrainian drone barrage shut down Moscow’s airports for hours on Friday, as several Russian government aircraft reportedly bringing President Vladimir V. Putin and his aides back from a summit in Turkmenistan were returning to the Russian capital.
Data from FlightRadar24 showed that the Russian government jets either circled Moscow or diverted to St. Petersburg.
It isn’t clear which jet was carrying Mr. Putin, who had arrived in Turkmenbashi, a Caspian Sea port city, on Thursday evening for a summit of former Soviet states.
The Russian leader has multiple Il-96-300PU planes which, like Air Force One, allow him to operate a command-and-control center from the air during a nuclear conflict. Known as the “Flying Kremlin,” the presidential jet flies along with identical aircraft that function as decoys to protect Mr. Putin’s security.
According to FlightRadar24 data, three such planes took off from Turkmenbashi on Friday afternoon, when the Russian state news agency Tass reported that the Russian leader had left the city and boarded a plane for the trip home.
The first two aircraft made abnormal looping maneuvers as they entered the airspace around Moscow, because Ukrainian drones had forced the capital’s four airports to shut down. The third plane, which had taken off after the other two, diverted to St. Petersburg and later flew to Moscow.
Video footage showed Mr. Putin disembarking in Turkmenistan for the summit on Thursday from a presidential jet with the tail number 96025 written underneath its wing. That is the aircraft that, according to FlightRadar24 data, diverted to St. Petersburg.
It is unclear, however, if Mr. Putin took the same plane on the way back from the summit. Nor has the government indicated whether he has returned to Moscow.
Airport closures in the Russian capital have become a common occurrence because of barrages of Ukrainian drones, and there was no indication whether the latest one was timed to the Russian president’s travel. On Friday, hundreds of flights were canceled or delayed, with all four of the capital’s airports suspending flights.
Commercial flights haven’t operated in Ukraine since Mr. Putin invaded in 2022 because of the danger posed by Russian missiles and drones in Ukrainian airspace.
President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine accused Russia of interfering with his travel when his plane was grounded last month in Moldova on account of a Russian drone entering the country’s airspace.
The Kremlin didn’t respond to reports that the Ukrainian drone attack had interfered with the Russian leader’s travel.
Not long after Mr. Putin returned to Russia, President Trump announced a deal with the Kremlin to lift Russia’s ban on exporting diesel fuel.
Mr. Trump said he had reached the deal after a “highly successful discussion” with Mr. Putin. The U.S. Treasury announced that it would temporarily issue a sanctions waiver on Russian diesel being released to the global market.
The U.S.-Israeli war against Iran has driven up the price of oil and diesel, a liability for Mr. Trump and Republicans heading into the midterm elections next month.
Though Russia is usually one of the world’s largest exporters of diesel fuel, months of Ukrainian strikes on Russian oil refineries created fuel shortages, prompting Moscow to ban diesel exports this summer, exacerbating the global supply crunch.
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