A Distracting Pirouette
- 13.08.2026, 17:07
Putin suddenly switched to an old backup plane amid rumors of fears of an assassination attempt
August 10, 2026. Vladimir Putin arrives on a visit to Novosibirsk. He is met at the aircraft steps by the President’s Plenipotentiary Representative in the Siberian Federal District Anatoly Seryshev, Governor Andrei Travnikov, and the head of the regional Ministry of Internal Affairs Andrei Kulkov. It seems like business as usual: Putin descends the stairs, greets the officials waiting for him, gets into his car, and drives away. But one detail stands out from the usual scene. At one point, the tail number of the Il-96 aircraft on which Putin flew to Novosibirsk appears in the frame. It is RA-96020. And, judging by this number, things really aren’t quite as usual this time.
RA-96020 is not a new presidential aircraft. It was built at the Voronezh Aircraft Plant in 2012 and transferred to the “Rossiya” special flight squadron in December of that same year. It was one of two new Il-96-300PU(M1) aircraft ordered to expand the presidential fleet. The contract for both aircraft cost the state approximately 10.4 billion rubles. The second aircraft, RA-96021, was delivered to the Special Flight Unit (SLO) in January 2014.
From the very beginning, RA-96020 was not intended for routine government transport. Its designation includes two letters: “PU.” This stands for “command post”: the aircraft is equipped with special communications systems and is intended for use by the country’s top leadership. In 2013, shortly after the aircraft arrived at the SLO, RA-96020 was already being used for Putin’s trips. It was photographed in June 2013 in Northern Ireland during the G8 summit, and in November of that same year in Trieste, where Putin flew for Russian-Italian talks.
At the same time, RA-96020 gradually ceased to be the only aircraft associated with the president’s flights. New Il-96s appeared in the presidential fleet, and the older aircraft took on backup roles: they transported the president’s entourage or followed the presidential plane to create multiple parallel routes.
In July 2019, RA-96020 flew to Yekaterinburg, where Putin was expected to arrive for “Innoprom.” However, the president was not on board: Putin was elsewhere at the time, and local media discovered that it was actually an escort aircraft that had arrived at Koltsovo.
And in 2022, RA-96020 was clearly used as a decoy. On December 19, while Putin was flying to Minsk on RA-96022, RA-96020 took off from Vnukovo about five minutes after him. The media speculated that this was done “for secrecy.” After that, RA-96020 virtually disappeared from the public aviation scene.
As Explainer noted, the aircraft reappeared in flight tracking databases only in 2024. However, its movements do not coincide with Putin’s public appearances, according to tracking data and reports from Russian state agencies. Soon, the plane disappears entirely and ceases to make any flights at all. Against this backdrop, the media reports that Putin fears an assassination attempt and a possible conspiracy within the Russian elite. In May, “Vazhnye Istorii” wrote about this, citing an intelligence report from one of the EU countries: the document mentioned heightened security measures around the president and his fears of a possible assassination attempt using drones. The Kremlin leader himself flies on older, well-known aircraft; Explainer has noted a number of coincidences.
May 19–20 — China. Putin was in Beijing on an official visit. During the same period, RA-96025 was spotted in Beijing; photos from the arrival area also show this specific aircraft. May 27 — Kazakhstan. Putin arrived in Astana on a state visit aboard the very same RA-96025—its tail number is visible in photos from the presidential arrival.
But soon this aircraft stopped flying long-haul routes; its routes were reduced to Moscow–St. Petersburg, according to Flightradar data.
And by August, Putin switched to an old Il-96 with the registration number RA-96020, which had not been used in recent years.
According to Flightradar, on August 10, this aircraft was in Novosibirsk—which is where Putin traveled after Buryatia. And there, the next day, August 11, he stopped his motorcade to meet with supposedly random people on the street.
That same evening, Putin left Novosibirsk, and the Il-96 flew out as well. As usual, the pilots of the presidential aircraft soon turned off the transponders, but judging by the plane’s course, it was flying back to Vladivostok—the main base of the Pacific Fleet. Thus, RA-96020 was first transferred from Moscow to the Far East, then found itself on Putin’s route via Ulan-Ude and Novosibirsk, and after the president’s departure, headed back to Vladivostok.
It appears that RA-96020 was returned to the presidential fleet to make it more difficult to determine which plane Putin was on. Previously, it had already been deployed simultaneously with the presidential aircraft for precisely this purpose. Now Putin himself has switched to RA-96020.
RA-96020 and RA-96025 are not the only aircraft Putin flies on. The presidential fleet includes several other Il-96s—RA-96021, RA-96022, and RA-96024. It was the latter aircraft that transported Putin to his memorable meeting with Trump in Alaska in August 2025. Putin flew to Minsk on RA-96022 in December 2022. RA-96021 is another of the Kremlin leader’s aircraft. During Prigozhin’s mutiny in June 2023, RA-96021, along with RA-96022, took off from Moscow and turned off its transponder near Tver.
Igor Davlyatchin, Explainer