Putin's Presidential Aircraft: What We Know

Russia's President Vladimir Putin gestures as he leaves after a state visit to North Korea, at an airport in Pyongyang, North Korea. (KCNA)

When Russian President Vladimir Putin travels abroad — as he did this week to North Korea and Vietnam to strengthen alliances and enhance security ties amid Russia’s war in Ukraine — he typically flies in older, Soviet-designed Ilyushin Il-96 series jets.

With his latest trip occurring soon after aircraft crashes claimed the lives of two other world leaders, President Ebrahim Raisi of Iran and Vice President Saulos Chilima of Malawi, a Kremlin spokesperson recently reassured the Russian public that Putin’s planes are “very reliable.”

Despite Russian airline carriers transitioning to newer Western models — with neither of the country’s two major airlines, Aeroflot and Rossiya, currently listing any Ilyushin planes in their commercial passenger fleets — Putin remains committed to using these aircraft.

Accompanied by fighter jets, Putin took an Il-96 on a whirlwind day trip in 2023 for talks with leaders in the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia. Earlier that same year, another plane from the government’s Il-96 fleet was tracked stopping at airports in Washington and New York to retrieve Russian diplomats, whom the Kremlin claimed had been ordered to leave the United States.

In 2018, Putin flew to Finland in an Il-96 for a summit with former US President Donald Trump and was accused of briefly trespassing in NATO airspace.

Little is known about the Rossiya special flight squadron, also known as the 235th Separate Aviation Detachment, which is responsible for the Kremlin’s aircraft, including the Il-96s, Tu-214 airplanes, and Mi-38 helicopters. According to Russian state media, the unit employs 2,500 people.

While using an outdated plane might puzzle outsiders, Putin could be using the Soviet-designed aircraft to convey a message of Russian resilience and strength.

“It’s the musings of a czar,” said Adam Taichi Kraft, a former intelligence collection strategist with the Defense Intelligence Agency who now consults on national security issues, “to will himself into the sky using whatever equipment he chooses.”