Moscow-bound plane turned back over Lithuania because of one passenger: Vulin says he was asleep

Air Serbia flight JU134 took off from Belgrade's Nikola Tesla Airport on Tuesday at 18:48, bound for Moscow. It got as far as southern Lithuania, close to the border with Belarus - and turned back. It landed in Belgrade around 10 p.m., after more than three hours in the air, met by police and special forces. The reason, according to the airline, was a single passenger.

That passenger, at least according to unofficial information from Serbian news sites, is Aleksandar Vulin - a former Serbian minister, one of the closest associates of former president Aleksandar Vučić and for years one of the most prominent pro-Russian politicians in Serbia.

"Colleagues, have you come for me?"

Vulin confirmed he was on the plane but says he only found out what was going on when he woke up. "I was asleep on the plane, I wake up and they tell me we're in Belgrade, I look, police have gathered, special forces...," he recounted. According to reports, he greeted the officers with the question: "Colleagues, have you come for me?"

He says he went through security screening again together with the other passengers, and then once more on his own. "Absolutely nothing illegal was found on me, because there couldn't have been anything," he said, adding that he hopes to fly soon, "unless they find a way to stop me from going to Moscow, and legally they can't". He says he isn't travelling to Russia as a tourist but on official business - to fight for an extension of the gas deal between Serbia and Russia. Since May 2025 Vulin has chaired the supervisory board of Srbijagas.

Who got him around security?

This is where the story gets more interesting. According to unofficial information, Vulin boarded the plane without the required security check, and someone allegedly helped him bypass the procedure. Milan Kuč, the airport's director of corporate security and a former member of the elite military unit "Cobras", later reviewed the camera footage, spotted the irregularity and ordered the plane back. There are also claims that his luggage didn't go through anti-sabotage screening. None of this has been confirmed by the authorities.

Air Serbia confirmed only that the plane returned for additional security checks on one passenger, without naming him. The company was quick to stress that passenger and baggage screening is the responsibility of the airport services, not the crew. Translation: don't look at us.

According to the same sources, also on board were Srbijagas director Dušan Bajatović and Serbian People's Party leader Nenad Popović. All three have been tied to Vučić's government for years, and all three are linked by close relations with Russia. Opposition leader Srđan Milivojević immediately asked: "Who is fleeing to Moscow tonight on the 18:30 flight?" There is no evidence so far that anyone was fleeing.

At one point more than 12,000 people were tracking the flight on Flightradar24 - the most-tracked flight in the world. If someone really did get past airport security because he's "one of ours", the real question isn't where Vulin was flying, but who opened the door for him. And how often does anyone actually look at that footage?