'Malicious Stupidity of Russophobes': Moscow Slams Bulgaria Over Denied Diplomatic Overflight

Earlier, the Bulgarian Foreign Ministry granted permission for Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov's plane to fly over the Balkan country's airspace to North Macedonia for the OSCE meeting.

Bulgaria refused the overflight of Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov's plane since the initial approval did not apply to the ministry's spokeswoman Maria Zakharova, who was on board the plane.

"The malicious stupidity of the Russophobes has reached the point that for the first time in our history the official authorities have forbidden not an airplane, but a person in an airplane to be in the sky - this is what is written in an official note of the Bulgarian Foreign Ministry: an airplane can fly over Bulgaria, but Maria Zakharova cannot fly in an airplane," Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said.

Zakharova noted that this was "not only stupidity, but the dangerous stupidity of some schemers among the Bulgarian authorities".

"The fact is that the rules of air communication are regulated by the 1944 Chicago Convention on International Civil Aviation. It stipulates that the territory of a state should be understood as 'land areas and adjacent territorial waters'. The term 'territory' does not include airspace. In this regard, the already illegal EU sanctions cannot apply to a non-stop flight by an aircraft of a person who is banned from entering the territory of the state," Zakharova explained.

"Did Bulgarian officials think that thousands of NATO officials on our mirror ban lists could be subject to similar retaliation? Were they thinking in terms of setting a dangerous global precedent? My guess is no. Who gave the illiterate officials in Sofia the right to dishonor the Bulgarian people?" she concluded.

The 30th Ministerial Council Meeting of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) is running from November 30 to December 1 in the capital of the North Macedonia, Skopje, where the OSCE members will decide on a candidate for the chairmanship.