An unusual flight, in full war. Who was on board a Russian government Ilyushin Il-76 plane that flew from Iran to Moscow the other day

The plane flew from Iran to Russia last Thursday, on the very day when the new Iranian leader Mojtaba Khamenei would have been transported to Moscow for medical care, according to information from Kuwait, writes the independent Russian publication Novaia Gazeta Europa.

A plane belonging to Russia's Ministry of Emergency Situations flew from an air base located on the border between Iran and Azerbaijan to the Russian capital last Thursday, according to flight tracking data consulted by Novaia Gazeta Europa.

The news follows an unconfirmed report by Kuwaiti newspaper Al-Jarida, which, citing a “senior source”, said on Sunday that Vladimir Putin had arranged for Mojtaba Khamenei to be flown from Iran on Thursday for medical treatment in Moscow after he was seriously injured in the Israeli airstrike that killed his father and former Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.

Iran's ambassador to Russia, Kazem Jalali, quoted by Tass, denied on Tuesday the information that the new supreme leader would receive medical care in Moscow.

What is certain is that Khamenei has not yet appeared in public since he was designated as the successor of his father, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was killed by US-Israeli attacks on February 28.

The flight of the Iliusin Il-76 plane

Information available on tracking website Flightradar24 shows that a Russian government plane flew from Moscow to the Azeri city of Lankaran, located 40 km from the border with Iran, on Thursday before returning to Moscow the same evening.

According to local reports, the plane was officially carrying 13 tons of humanitarian aid to Iran, which was picked up by trucks sent by the Iranian Red Crescent.

During the flight from Moscow to Lankaran, the plane followed a relatively normal trajectory, with a few small anomalies near Moscow, probably caused by anti-drone measures in the capital.

However, upon returning to Russia, the aircraft recorded erratic jumps in its position, indicating that either the transponder was transmitting falsified location data or the aircraft was the target of strong GPS jamming, Novaia Gazeta writes.

The plane in question is a Soviet-era Ilyushin Il-76 that was recently used to evacuate Russians stranded in Israel, Lebanon and Iran following the outbreak of hostilities in the Middle East earlier this month.

According to the website of the Ministry of Emergencies of Russia, aircraft of this type can accommodate up to five medical modules, each capable of transporting four injured patients.

Khamenei was wounded in the attack that killed his father

Initial American claims that Mojtaba Khamenei had been “disfigured” in the Israeli attack on Khamenei's compound in Tehran were partially confirmed on Wednesday by Iran's ambassador to Cyprus, Alireza Salarian, who said in an interview that Khamenei's younger son was “lucky to survive the attack”.

According to some reports, the new ayatollah suffered serious injuries to his leg, arm and hand.

Mojtaba Khamenei survived the US and Israeli raids because he went for a walk in the garden minutes before his home was destroyed by rockets.

According to the Telegraph, Mojtaba Khamenei was targeted in the same attack that killed his father and other members of the Islamic Republic's leadership.

However, he had left moments before Israeli Blue Sparrow ballistic missiles hit his residence at 9:32 a.m. (local time) on February 28.