2 min readUpdated: Aug 25, 2026 07:47 PM IST

A US military transport aircraft landed at Moscow’s Vnukovo airport on Tuesday after flying directly from Riga, Latvia, according to flight-tracking data, though it was unclear who or what was aboard, news agency Reuters reported.

The Boeing Globemaster, registered in the United States under tail number 07-7181, arrived in Moscow at around 0700 GMT, data from Flightradar24 showed. However, the report could not independently verify whether the aircraft was carrying passengers or cargo.

According to an X post by Open Source Intel, the aircraft was identified as a US Air Force Boeing C-17 Globemaster III. It noted that the aircraft’s flight history included Camp Springs, Maryland, where Joint Base Andrews is located. The base hosts aircraft used by the US president. The purpose of the Moscow flight was unknown, and no official statement had been reported.

The Kremlin said it had no information about the flight. The aircraft had flown to Riga on August 23 from the US airbase at Camp Springs, near Washington, DC, according to Flightradar24 data.

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The flight comes amid uncertainty over the next round of US-Russia contacts on the Ukraine war. The last direct flight by a US-registered aircraft from Europe to Russia took place in January, when it carried US special envoys Steven Witkoff and Jared Kushner to Moscow for talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin on ending the conflict in Ukraine.

The Kremlin said last week that it had no information on whether Witkoff and Kushner would make another trip to Moscow. US-Russia negotiations on Ukraine have largely stalled as the war in Iran has complicated the diplomatic landscape.

(With inputs from Reuters)

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