The Russian plane from the “Cocaine case” has arrived in Alaska, where Putin -TRUMP is to take place
A Russian government plane, previously used in an international drug trafficking operation, took off on Moscow on Tuesday morning to Anchorage, the largest city in Alaska, where a high-ranking meeting is expected between Russian President Vladimir Putin and American counterpart Donald Trump, scheduled for August 15.
IL-96 Rossia/photo plane: X.
This is an IL-96 type aircraft belonging to the special “Rossiya” squadron, registered RA-96023-an aircraft reserved for the transport of Russian dignitaries, which was involved in a major international scandal a few years ago.
The Ruse Verstka and System independent publications pointed out the flight using the data of the Flightradar24 monitoring platform, which indicates that the plane took off from Vnukovo Airport in Moscow on the morning of August 14th. At the time of writing this news, there is no official information on the people on board. According to the TASS agency, the aircraft would transport members of a team responsible for the logistical training of the bilateral meeting.
A plane with delicate history
RA-96023 is not an aircraft. In the past, it has been used by high -ranking officials, including Nikolai Fortoșev, the former head of the Russian Security Council, today a close advisor to Vladimir Putin. The plane made numerous international official flights, including in the US, where in 2024 it was used, according to the Russian Foreign Ministry, for the rotation of diplomatic staff.
Also this aircraft transported Russian diplomats in the UK in 2018 after the poisoning attempt by former spy Sergei Skripal, in a high tension between Moscow and the West.
The connection with the “case of cocaine” in Argentina
However, RA-96023 became especially known in 2018, when it was involved-indirectly, but significantly-in an international drug trafficking scandal. The Argentine authorities discovered, in an annex of the school subordinated to the Russian Embassy in Buenos Aires, 12 suitcases containing almost 400 kilograms of cocaine.
The operation was a thoroughly organized one, and the Argentine investigators replaced drugs with flour, mounting and tracking systems in luggage. The suitcases were then sent to Moscow exactly by the RA-96023 plane, in December 2017-a detail that was later confirmed by the official images distributed by the Argentine authorities.
Following the investigation, several people were arrested, including Viktor Kalmikov and Iștimir Hudjamov, as well as Ali, the former administrative manager of the Russian Embassy in Argentina. Considered the brain of the operation, the businessman Andrei Kovalciuk was detained in Germany and extradited to Russia in the summer of 2018. He claimed that the suitcases contained only coffee, alcohol, souvenirs and personal objects, saying that everything was a “challenge”.
In 2022, the Russian courts issued heavy sentences: those involved received penalties between 13 and 18 years in prison for attempted international drug trafficking and participation in a narcotic distribution network.
