Vladimir Putin arrived in New Delhi in the early hours of Friday for the 18th BRICS Summit, and within hours the aircraft that brought him had generated more online chatter than most of the summit’s actual agenda. Meet the Flying Kremlin, the Russian president’s heavily customised Ilyushin IL-96-300PU, an aircraft that manages to be simultaneously a diplomatic ferry and a fairly pointed reminder of exactly whose president just landed.
Not one plane, but two, on purpose
The first thing worth knowing is that nobody watching from the ground could actually confirm which aircraft Putin was on. Russian security deployed two identical IL-96-300PU jets for the Moscow to Delhi journey, matched down to the colour scheme, dimensions and lettering on the fuselage, a tactic known in aviation circles as a decoy flight. One carries the president. The other exists purely to make that fact considerably harder for anyone with unfriendly intentions to establish. It is, in effect, a magic trick performed at 30,000 feet, and one Russia has clearly decided is worth repeating on every major international trip.
The specs behind the nickname
The aircraft itself is substantial by any measure, measuring 55.35 metres long with a wingspan of 60.12 metres and powered by four Aviadvigatel PS-90A turbofan engines capable of covering roughly 11,000 kilometres without refuelling. It is operated by Russia’s Special Flight Squadron, the unit responsible for transporting the country’s top leadership, and Russia maintains four such specially modified aircraft in total. Inside, the presidential fit out reportedly includes a private suite with bedrooms, bathrooms, a kitchen, a dining area and a dedicated conference room, alongside sophisticated communications systems designed to keep the president connected regardless of altitude or airspace.
Why it is also called the Doomsday Plane
The aircraft’s other nickname sounds considerably more dramatic than what it actually describes. Doomsday Plane does not mean the jet can survive a nuclear blast or fly through one. It refers instead to the aircraft’s role in preserving Russia’s chain of command during a catastrophic event, keeping the country’s nuclear command and control systems accessible to the president even while airborne, so that continuity of command survives regardless of what is happening on the ground. It is, in other words, less a flying bunker and more a flying insurance policy, one Russia presumably hopes never actually gets used for its intended purpose.
What actually happened once he landed
Amid all the attention on the aircraft, Putin did get around to the reason for the trip. Addressing a gathering of BRICS business leaders ahead of the summit, he pitched a new investment platform, built around the New Development Bank, aimed at funding trade, infrastructure, logistics and technology projects across the bloc, and floated Russian cooperation on projects including the Arctic Transport Corridor and the North-South Transport Corridor, alongside technology, artificial intelligence, unmanned transport and tourism initiatives. He was careful to frame the bloc’s growing economic cooperation as constructive rather than confrontational. We are not against anyone, he said. We are in favour of our interests. His three day visit includes direct talks with Prime Minister Narendra Modi on bilateral cooperation, running alongside the wider 18th BRICS Summit taking place in the city.
A plane that outshone the policy, at least for one day
There is a certain irony in a summit built around trade diversification and supply chain resilience being temporarily overshadowed by a conversation about aircraft engineering and decoy jets, though perhaps it says something honest about which stories travel furthest online. The investment platform pitch and the transport corridor proposals will matter far more in the long run than which of two identical planes actually carried the Russian president to Delhi. For one news cycle, at least, the plane won comfortably.
Key takeaways
Vladimir Putin arrived in New Delhi for the 18th BRICS Summit aboard the Ilyushin IL-96-300PU, known as the Flying Kremlin or Doomsday Plane, with a second identical aircraft flown as a decoy for security. The nickname refers to the aircraft’s role in preserving command continuity during a catastrophic event rather than any capacity to survive a nuclear blast. Putin used the visit to pitch a new BRICS investment platform and transport corridor projects, alongside bilateral talks with Prime Minister Modi.
