Sergey Lavrov’s airplane bypassed Bulgaria on its way to the meeting of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) in Skopje, North Macedonia.

• Bulgaria allows Sergey Lavrov's plane to fly through its airspace en route to Skopje
  

Lavrov’s plane covered a distance of some 4,000 kilometers and flew over Turkey and Greece, although it was originally planned that he would fly over Bulgaria. The flight lasted more than 5 hours, the Russian news agency TASS reports, as quoted by the Bulgarian news agency BTA. Maria Zakharova, spokesperson for the Russian Foreign Ministry wrote on Telegram that the decision by the Bulgarian authorities to refuse to open the country’s airspace to the plane if she is on board was “dangerous folly”. Sergey Lavrov is not going to have a meeting with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who left on a visit to Israel, BGNES reports. Bulgaria’s Foreign Minister Mariya Gabriel, who is in Skopje, is not planning a meeting with Lavrov either.

"Lavrov needs to hear again, from everyone, why Russia is being condemned and isolated," said the EU's High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Josep Borrell at a press conference with North Macedonia’s Prime Minister Dimitar Kovachevski in Skopje. "Then he will be able to come back to the Kremlin and report to the Kremlin master.