At about seven o’clock on the evening of Sunday 8 November, a white three-engined jet with a Russian flag on its tail touched down at Ben Gurion Airport. It was not an airliner on a scheduled run. According to flight-tracking data reported by The Jerusalem Post, it was a Tupolev Tu-154M operated by the Russian Defence Ministry, flying in from a military air base near Moscow.

The aircraft, registration RA-85042, has been on the United States sanctions list since May 2023. Nobody has said who was on board, or why it came.

What the tracking data showed

The Jerusalem Post, citing Flightradar24 data, reported that the jet departed Chkalovsky, the air base outside Moscow that serves as the main hub for the Defence Ministry’s VIP and government flights. It flew over the Black Sea and through Turkish airspace, entered Israel from the Mediterranean, and circled over the country before landing at about 7 p.m.

According to the same report, the aircraft had been sitting in Moscow for the previous week, since arriving from Novosibirsk on 2 November. The Israeli outlet JFeed independently reported the same type, registration and departure base late on Sunday night.

Both outlets identified the aircraft as belonging to the Defence Ministry’s 223rd Flight Unit, which flies Russian government officials and military personnel. JFeed stressed that the jet is not used for regular commercial passenger flights.

Why the jet is sanctioned

Afterburner checked the US Treasury’s sanctions list directly. The Russian Tu-154M RA-85042 appears there as a Tu-154 with manufacturer’s serial number 12A998, listed under Executive Order 14024 and linked to the 223rd Flight Unit, whose full official name is the Federal State Governmental Institution 223 Flight Unit State Airlines of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation.

The designation dates from 19 May 2023, when Washington targeted the unit over its support for the Wagner mercenary group. The State Department’s fact sheet that day said 37 of the unit’s aircraft would be identified as blocked property.

The sanctions restrict US persons from dealing with the aircraft and its operator. They do not, on their own, oblige Israel or any other country to refuse it permission to land, and no source has suggested that any Israeli rule was broken.

Spotter footage of the same Tu-154M, RA-85042, landing at Amsterdam Schiphol.

Silence on all sides

The Israel Defense Forces declined to comment to The Jerusalem Post, and the newspaper said it had asked the Russian Embassy and several US government bodies for a response. JFeed reported that the IDF released no information about the purpose of the flight, the identity of the passengers or whether any Israeli body had been in contact before the plane arrived.

JFeed was also explicit that there was, at that stage, no verified information linking the flight to any specific political or security development. Afterburner has found none either, and will not guess. The aircraft’s onward route and departure time had not been reported when this article was published.

An old Tupolev on government duty

The Tu-154 itself is a Soviet classic: a three-engined, medium-range narrow-body airliner designed in the mid-1960s, which for decades carried around half of all Aeroflot passengers. Several air forces kept the type as a head-of-state and government transport long after airlines retired it.

RA-85042 has been seen in the West before. Spotters photographed it at Amsterdam Schiphol in April 2018 and filmed it in Geneva in 2016, the kind of official trips the 223rd Flight Unit exists to fly. On Sunday it added Tel Aviv’s main airport to the list. What it carried there remains, for now, Moscow’s and Jerusalem’s business.

Sources: The Jerusalem Post, JFeed, US Treasury OFAC Sanctions List, US Department of State, Wikipedia (Tupolev Tu-154)