Zelenskyy to depart for G7 summit from Moldova, not Poland

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and his delegation will depart for the G7 summit from Chisinau Airport in Moldova on the evening of June 15, rather than from the usual Polish airport in Rzeszów. This is the second recent instance where a Moldovan airport has been used for a foreign trip by the president.

According to flight information on the aviation resource Airnavradar, the plane carrying Zelenskyy and the delegation will fly from Chisinau to Geneva, Switzerland. Geneva is the nearest major airport to the French town of Évian-les-Bains on Lake Geneva, where the G7 summit will be held.

For three years, the base airport had consistently been Rzeszów in Poland, and the Ukrainian aircraft often stayed between flights in Krakow, which has better technical facilities. Before this trip, the plane had been in Krakow and arrived in Chisinau on the afternoon of June 15.

Speculation arose over the previous weekend about a possible change in the permanent base of Zelenskyy's plane, after he first flew to the UK from Chisinau instead of a Polish airport. Amid heightened tensions with Warsaw over naming a Ukrainian defense unit after the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA), some suggested the airport switch had political motivations. However, the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry denied any political context behind the decision.