Moroccan Prime Minister Flies to Moscow on Jet Once Owned by Russian Billionaire

On Wednesday, October 28, at 10:58 a.m., the Polish Military Radar account spotted a Moroccan Gulfstream G550 crossing Polish airspace en route to Moscow. Specialist outlet Defence24 reported the flight as several African delegations converged on the Russian capital.

The aircraft is registered as CN-MMR and uses the call sign MRS1315. Flight data published by ADS-B.nl for October 28 confirm its presence in Russian airspace.

On board was Fatima Ezzahra El Mansouri, who arrived in Moscow on Wednesday to represent King Mohammed VI at the third Russia-Africa summit. The Moroccan government also confirmed Nasser Bourita’s participation in the delegation. That evening, the head of government attended a reception hosted by Vladimir Putin at the Kremlin, where the king himself had met the Russian president in March 2016.

The story of this aircraft, however, began well before this official trip. In July 2017, Le Desk reported that the Royal Palace had just acquired a Gulfstream G550 built in 2014. The aircraft had logged only 350 flight hours at the time. On July 6, it flew from Geneva to Morocco.

Former jet of billionaire Vladimir Potanin

Before it was acquired, the Gulfstream belonged to Vladimir Potanin, a Russian businessman who heads the Interros group. It flew under the Austrian registration OE-LOK before joining the Moroccan fleet as CN-AMR.

The aircraft later received its current registration, CN-MMR. Aviation records from LAASdata make it possible to trace these changes through one detail that remained the same: its serial number, 5462.

This Gulfstream had already visited Moscow in its new livery. A photograph taken on March 20, 2020, at Sheremetyevo Airport shows CN-MMR on Russian soil, nearly seven years before its return with Morocco’s new head of government.