The An-124-100 Ruslan plane of the Antonov Airlines airline, which Kyiv residents saw over the city on Friday, July 11, flew to Leipzig, Germany, where the Antonov fleet is currently based.

The airworthiness inspector of the State Aviation Service Fedir Hryshchuk has announced this on his Facebook page.

“The An-124-100 UR-82073 plane is already in Leipzig. And although there is still a thorny path of certification tests ahead, there is hope to see it in the skies of Ukraine. With new engines, new avionics, with expanded conditions of use!” he wrote.

A representative of the State Aviation Service added a photo of the plane, which shows that the fuselage has the inscription “BE BRAVE LIKE IRPIN”.

It was also previously reported that the planes of the Antonov State Enterprise will have the inscriptions “Be brave like…” dedicated to 10 Ukrainian cities: Bucha, Irpin, Chernihiv, Hostomel, Volnovakha, Mariupol, Kharkiv, Kherson, Mykolaiv and Okhtyrka. Seven planes will be named in honor of Bucha, Irpin, Mariupol, Mykolaiv, Okhtyrka, Kharkiv and Kherson. Three more hero cities will be marked on the fuselages of other types of aircraft from the Antonov fleet. The An-28 will be named after Chernihiv, the An-158 after Volnovakha, and the An-178 after Hostomel, the base airport of Antonov Airlines, the company’s Facebook page said.

As the Ukrainian News agency earlier reported, for the first time in a long time since the start of the full-scale invasion, Ukrainians spotted an airplane in the sky over Kyiv, despite the closed airspace over Ukraine.

Earlier, on April 21 and 22, users of the Flightradar flight tracking service observed the movement of an unknown airplane called Welcome around Lviv. Residents of the city heard the roar of engines. However, the government denied that the flights of the unknown aircraft were related to the resumption of air traffic.

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