Poland “cannot guarantee” Putin would not be arrested if he flies through Polish airspace to Hungary

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Notes from Poland is run by a small editorial team and is published by an independent, non-profit foundation that is funded through donations from our readers. We cannot do what we do without your support.

Poland’s foreign minister, Radosław Sikorski, has said that he “cannot guarantee” that, if Vladimir Putin seeks to fly through Polish airspace to a proposed meeting with Donald Trump in Budapest, his plane would not be forced to land and the Russian president detained under an International Criminal Court (ICC) warrant.

Sikorski’s comments were criticised by his Russian counterpart, Sergey Lavrov, who suggested that failing to guarantee the safety of Putin’s plane would amount to a “terrorist act”.

In March 2023, the ICC issued an arrest warrant for Putin, who is accused of committing a war crime through the illegal deportation of children from Ukraine during the ongoing war.

Last week, following a phone call with Putin, Trump said the two leaders may meet in Budapest to discuss ending the war between Russia and Ukraine.

Hungary, which enjoys close relations with Moscow, is in the process of withdrawing from the ICC. However, were Putin to visit Hungary, it is possible he would have to fly over other EU countries that remain committed to the international court.

In an interview with Radio Rodzina on Tuesday morning, Sikorski was asked what Poland would do if Putin were to seek to fly through its airspace.

“We cannot guarantee that an independent Polish court will not order a hypothetical plane carrying Putin to be brought down for the suspect’s transfer to The Hague,” said Sikorski, referring to the Dutch city where the ICC is based.

The Polish foreign minister also criticised Hungary, saying that “the fact that an EU member state, still bound by the International Criminal Court, invites President Putin is not only distasteful, it also shows that Hungary positions itself not as part of the West”.

He added that Hungary was also undermining Western unity in other ways, such as by blocking assistance for Ukraine and maintaining high imports of Russian oil. Poland has been one of Ukraine’s most vocal allies since Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022.

Sikorski’s remarks prompted an angry response from Lavrov, who noted that last week a Polish court had refused to extradite a Ukrainian man suspected of involvement in blowing up the Nord Stream gas pipelines that brought Russian gas to Germany.

“I heard here that Mr Sikorski threatened that the security of President Putin’s plane…in Polish airspace,” said Lavrov, quoted by news agency TASS, adding that it appears that “the Poles are now ready to commit terrorist acts themselves”.

“In Poland, a court officially made a decision justifying the terrorist attack on Nord Stream – and now the foreign minister is saying that, if a Polish court demands it, it will impede the free movement of the Russian leader’s plane,” he added.

Bulgaria, another EU member, yesterday indicated that it would be ready to open its airspace for Putin’s aircraft.

“When efforts are made for peace, it is only logical that all sides contribute to making such a meeting possible,” said Bulgaria’s foreign minister, Georg Georgiev, according to Bulgarian news service Novinite.

In theory, Putin could also reach Hungary without crossing another EU country by flying from the Adriatic Sea over Montenegro and Serbia.

Moscow has not said whether Putin will even attend the proposed summit, or how he would travel if he did. CNN reported on Tuesday that the event may be delayed, citing sources who said a preparatory meeting between the leaders’ top foreign policy aides this week had been postponed.

Meanwhile, Sikorski’s remarks also faced criticism from Sławomir Mentzen, one of the leaders of the far-right Confederation (Konfederacja) group that sits in Poland’s parliament.

Mentzen said that threatening to “intercept a plane carrying the president of a nuclear superpower to peace talks…seems quite risky and may have completely unpredictable consequences”.

He then noted that, when there was talk of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu – who is also wanted on an ICC warrant – visiting Poland for the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, the Polish government said that it would guarantee him safe passage.

“Why does Poland completely ignore the ICC in one case, but in another wants to obey the ICC, even risking retaliation from Russia?” asked Mentzen, who finished a strong third in this year’s presidential election and whose party is currently riding high in the polls.

Notes from Poland is run by a small editorial team and published by an independent, non-profit foundation that is funded through donations from our readers. We cannot do what we do without your support.

Main image credit: Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Poland/Flickr (under CC BY-NC 4.0)

Alicja Ptak

Alicja Ptak is senior editor at Notes from Poland and a multimedia journalist. She previously worked for Reuters.