After the confusion over the meeting between Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump in Budapest scheduled for a couple of weeks, questions have arisen about how the Kremlin leader will arrive in the Hungarian capital. Because the Tsar is being chased by an international arrest warrant issued in 2023 by the Criminal Court in The Hague. Therefore the logistics situation is unclear, as observed by Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov.
The complete rout has started
How will Putin get to European territory? Many trajectories are excluded a priori: to arrive in Budapest, the aircraft would in fact have to cross the airspace of NATO member countries openly hostile to Moscow, such as the Baltic Republics, Poland or Romania. In an interview with Izvestia, political scientist Ivan Mezyuho indicated the one that passes over the Black Sea and Serbia as the “most likely option”. To cross EU airspace, a special authorization would still be required, added the same source, hinting at a possible alternative route that would allow connecting Russia to Hungary without flying over European countries.
The puzzle of Putin’s arrest warrant
The most delicate point, however, remains that linked to Putin’s arrest warrant. The International Criminal Court pushes Hungary to arrest the Russian leader, accused of war crimes, for the deportation and transfer of Ukrainian children from areas of Ukraine that came under Russian control. Hungary also has a duty to arrest Putin despite the decision to withdraw from the Rome Statute announced in recent months, as reiterated by a spokesperson for the Hague Court. According to the Rome Statute, signatory countries are required to arrest a person wanted by the Court even if he or she enters their airspace. A circumstance that did not arise for the August 15th summit in Alaska since the United States has not ratified the Statute.
Hungary, however, as a signatory, would be formally obliged to act, as an ICC spokesperson recalled. Of course, Budapest announced the withdrawal last April 3, just as the Hungarian leader Viktor Orban received his Israeli counterpart Benjamin Netanyahu in Budapest, who was also hit by a Court mandate. However, the Hungarian withdrawal from the Rome Statute will become effective only one year after notification to the UN secretary general, i.e. on 2 June 2026. But Orban reassured Putin, assuring him that he will provide “all the necessary guarantees”, since the international arrest warrant is pending on him.
“There are no travel bans on the EU”
The question of European sanctions which, from the day after the invasion of Ukraine, also hit Putin and the Foreign Minister, Sergei Lavrov, remains open. The sanctions, however, provide for the freezing of assets in EU countries and not the ban on entry into European countries. A possible formal derogation was evoked by the spokesperson of the European Commission, Anitta Hipper, according to whom it is up to individual member states to decide whether to grant exceptions to the ban on entry into EU airspace.
The link between Budapest, Kiev and Moscow
The choice of the city divided by the Danube responds to both political and technical reasons and reignites the debate on Budapest’s position towards Moscow and on the arrest warrant issued by the International Criminal Court (ICC) against the Russian president. Budapest, then, has historical significance regarding the war in Ukraine. In 1994, after the fall of the USSR, Kiev surrendered the third largest nuclear arsenal in the world, in exchange for security guarantees through the Budapest Memorandum. For many Ukrainians, that document has become a symbol of broken promises: signed by Russia, the United States and the United Kingdom, it guaranteed protection for Ukraine’s sovereignty, but was broken when Moscow annexed Crimea in 2014 and launched an invasion in 2022.
Speaking on public radio, Orban – Trump’s ally and considered by many observers to be Moscow’s main support in the EU – defined the choice of Budapest as “logical”. “The Hungarian capital is essentially the only place in Europe where such a meeting can take place because Hungary is the only pro-peace country,” the Fidesz leader said. Who had been in Moscow in July last year to meet Putin, as soon as the Hungarian presidency of the Union began, in an attempt to negotiate a ceasefire with Kiev.
