The visit to Serbia by Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on 6 and 7 June has been cancelled after Bulgaria, North Macedonia and Montenegro refused to open their airspace to his airplane. Russia’s ambassador to Bulgaria Eleonora Mitrofanova confirmed, for the Russian TASS news agency, that the Bulgarian authorities have refused to allow Lavrov’s aircraft to fly over Bulgaria.

The EU banned flights by Russian airlines over the member countries at the end of February. The decision is in compliance with the EU sanctions regime, where Sergey Viktorovich Lavrov comes under No. 670 in the list of natural and legal persons subject to restrictions by the EU, the Bulgarian Foreign Ministry has stated. Talking to Serbian RTRS TV, Sergey Lavrov accused the West, and most prominently the UK and USA, of turning Ukraine into an instrument of restraining and exhausting the Russian Federation by not allowing Kyiv to negotiate with Moscow.

In Belgrade, Lavrov was supposed to meet with Serbia’s President Aleksandar Vučić and with the Serbian political elite. Today, June 6, President Vučić is scheduled to meet with the Russian ambassador to Serbia. Meanwhile, Serbia’s state TV RTS announced that Aleksandar Vučić would be addressing the nation on the matter in the central news.