Antonov 225 comes back as a «ghost» on flight trackers with a message for Putin

The end of last week was marked as the moment when it was confirmed that one of the most important aircraft in history, and also the largest in the world, was destroyed in Ukraine in the midst of the Russian invasion.

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After several days of speculation about the real condition of the Antonov An-225 Mriya, considering photos of its damaged hangar, a video made by a Russian broadcaster at Gostomel airport near the capital, Kiev, showed that virtually nothing remained of the entire front half of the giant aircraft.

But even with confirmation that the plane is no longer airworthy, a log on the online tracking platform FlightRadar24 on Friday, March 11, caused controversy on social media.

Several people took screenshots showing what would be An-225 registration UR-82060, the only example of the model ever built, performing a perfectly circular trajectory around Kiev and, moreover, the flight identification is an insult to Russian President Vladimir Putin.

See below some of the images captured:

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It has not yet been confirmed what would have been done for that record to appear on the tracking platform, however, the suspicion is that someone would have entered the information into the database, since, due to the condition of the conflict in Ukraine, such a flight around Kiev, even if it was performed by some drone emitting a false signal from the large aircraft, would be difficult to occur.

Despite the screenshots, the record was deleted from the database, and it is no longer possible to find the flight in the Antonov An-225’s history.