A. Rubio / L. Ayllón
Russia has sent an official plane to Madrid to proceed with the repatriation of 27 diplomats and employees of its Embassy expelled by the Spanish Government, as The Diplomat learned from reliable sources.
The aircraft, an Ilyushin-96 assigned to the Special Transport Squadron, the Russian government’s VIP transport and state flight division, landed yesterday afternoon at Barajas-Adolfo Suarez airport, after entering Spanish territory over the Atlantic, having skirted European airspace, which has been closed to Russian aircraft since February 28. Both the EU and the United Kingdom and Canada adopted this measure after Russian troops invaded Ukraine on February 24.
The Spanish authorities granted authorization for the entry of the aircraft, in order to facilitate the departure of the expelled diplomats, since, otherwise, they would have many difficulties to reach Moscow, precisely due to the closure of the European airspace, according to the sources consulted.
Coincidentally, upon arrival in Spain, the Russian aircraft flew for a few hundred kilometers parallel to two US Air Force tankers that were en route from the UK to the Rota naval air base.
The plane is scheduled to leave early Tuesday morning for Athens, where it will presumably pick up more Russian diplomats, taking on board the expelled Embassy staff who, last Tuesday, were given seven days to leave Spain. This same plane has already made other similar flights to Washington and Berlin since the conflict in Ukraine began.
Among those expelled – 21 diplomats and 6 Embassy employees – is not the Ambassador, Yuri Korchagin. Although the Spanish government has not provided the list of persons affected by the measure, The Diplomat was able to learn that the Embassy’s minister-counselor, Dmitri Sokolov, is not on the list either.
The decision to keep both the ambassador and the ‘number two’ of the diplomatic representation is probably due to the Spanish government’s desire to prevent Russia from also expelling the person who occupies the Second Chief of Staff at the Embassy in Moscow, the diplomat Agustín Núñez.
So far, the Russian Federation has not communicated the list of the personnel of the Spanish Embassy or Consulates in St. Petersburg and Moscow who will be expelled, but if the Government of Vladimir Putin strictly applies reciprocity, it may cause a great vacuum in our diplomatic representation.
Spain has in Russia approximately half the number of personnel with diplomatic status that Russia has in Madrid, which is around half a hundred.
