Coup attempt: Putin’s plane disappears from radar, location unknown

The whereabouts of the President of Russia, Mr Vladimir Putin, is now a subject of debate after one of his official planes departed from Moscow and suddenly disappeared from the radars on its way to Valdai.

President Putin came under threat from his murderous ally, terrorist and war criminal, Yevgeny Prigozhin, who operates the Wagner mercenary group frequently used by Putin for unofficial strikes against his enemies.

The Wagner group had on Saturday mobilized other militant opponents of Putin’s government in a powerful attempt to seize power from the Putin led Russian Kremlin. The group later disembarked from the coup with persuasion from Belarusian leader, Aleksander Lukashenko.

The Belarusian Hajun monitoring project, which cited data from the Flight radar 24 service, said on Telegram on June 24 that Vladimir Putin’s plane left Moscow on the afternoon of June 24 as PMC Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin pushed his reckless troops through cities towards Moscow.

The Russian government’s Il-96−300PU aircraft took off from Vnukovo Airport at 14:16 local time and headed for Valdai, one of Putin’s residences, it said.

However, Hajun said it was not known who was on board the plane, although it was an aircraft which has been used by the Russian dictator several times.

The plane reportedly disappeared from radars near the Russian city of Tver (about 150 kilometers from Valdai), the independent Russian website Important Stories (IStories) said on Telegram on June 24. The media outlet claims that the plane is “equipped to control the armed forces.”

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy of Ukraine confirmed in a separate statement that Putin fled Moscow  during the failed coup d’état in Russia.

In his daily updates to the people, Zelenskyy  claimed that Putin fled Moscow after the start of an armed uprising by the Wagner mercenary group.

“The man from the Kremlin is obviously very afraid and probably hiding somewhere, not showing himself,” Zelenskyy said. “I am sure that he is no longer in Moscow.  He knows what he is afraid of because he himself created this threat,” Zelenskyy said.

President Zelenskyy wrote in a statement on Twitter that attempted coup d’état by Prigozhin demonstrates that “the bosses of Russia do not control anything.”

Zelenskyy described the internal political situation in Russia as “complete chaos,” adding that there is a “complete absence of any predictability.”

While commenting on Putin’s whereabouts to the state-controlled TASS news agency, his press secretary Dmitry Peskov said his boss “is working in the Kremlin.”

The Ukrainian online publication Ukrainska Pravda cites an unnamed source in the Ukrainian special services who states that “Putin is leaving Moscow, he is being taken to Valdai.”

The Insider, a Russian investigative journalism project, also writes that as of 3 p.m. local time, another Russian special forces aircraft had landed in St. Petersburg.

The independent news outlet Mozhem Obyasnit, in turn, reports that Russian officials are fleeing from Moscow on business jets – at least three flights served by the Special Flight Unit“Rossiya” of the Russian President’s Administration have already departed for St. Petersburg.

On June 23, the chief of PMC Wagner Group Yevgeny Prigozhin declared war on the Russian Defense Ministry after an alleged attack by the Russian army on his mercenaries’ military camp.

As of June 24, according to media reports, Wagner mercenaries took control of Russian military facilities in Rostov and Voronezh.

Prigozhin demands access to Russia’s top military leadership, threatening to “advance towards Moscow.”