Poland has threatened to arrest Vladimir Putin if he flies over its airspace on his way to Budapest, Hungary, where he is due to meet Donald Trump for a bilateral summit.
Warsaw is a signatory to the Rome Statute, the international treaty that established the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague in 1998, and is therefore bound to comply with its rulings, including the arrest warrant currently issued against the Russian president.
Poland’s Foreign Minister, Radosław Sikorski, told Radio Rodzina: “I cannot guarantee that an independent Polish court wouldn’t order the government to escort such an aircraft down to hand the suspect over to the court in The Hague. And therefore, if this summit is to take place, hopefully with the participation of the victim of the aggression, the aircraft will use a different route.“
Bulgaria, meanwhile, has agreed to allow the Russian president to fly through its airspace to reach his destination, according to Bulgarian Foreign Minister Georg Georgiev.
On Tuesday, European leaders issued a joint statement supporting the US president’s peace efforts, as the war in Ukraine enters its fourth year.
Last week, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy travelled to Washington to meet Trump and seek additional military aid.
