Poland closes air space to Russian defence minister's plane

Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoig: photo = Wikimedia Commons/CC/Sasha Krotov

Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu was returning home from a celebration in Bratislava of the 70th anniversary of a Slovak uprising against occupying WWII Nazi Germans on Friday when Poland's state air navigation services agency PAZP refused his plane permission to pass through Polish air space as it was registered as a military flight and not civilian.

The plane returned to the Slovak capital for refuelling in Bratislava before the aircraft was cleared to overfly Poland, having changed its status back to civilian, a spokesman for Poland's defence ministry said.

Though Poland's foreign ministry has said the decision was “procedural and not political” the Russian foreign ministry vowed that the refusal to allow a minister to overfly Polish air space would meet with “an appropriate response from Russia”.

Relations between Warsaw and Moscow have been increasingly tense since the outbreak of fighting in the east of Ukraine, with each side accusing the other of escalating the tension in the region.

EU foreign ministers met in Milan on Friday to discuss the Ukrainian crisis, with many calling for a tougher response from the 28-nation bloc to what NATO has described as “1000 Russian troops in Ukraine”.

"We see regular Russian army units operating offensively on the Ukrainian territory against the Ukrainian army. We must call a spade a spade,” Sweden's Carl Bildt said.

Russia has retaliated to EU sanctions, including asset freezes and travel bans by imposing an embargo on food exports from Europe and Russia. (pg)