Diplomatic tensions are running high across Europe as plans for a summit between Russian President Vladimir Putin and U.S. President Donald Trump in Budapest raise thorny legal and logistical questions. The prospect of Putin traveling to Hungary for high-stakes ceasefire talks has triggered warnings from Poland and other European nations, with the International Criminal Court’s (ICC) 2023 arrest warrant for Putin casting a long shadow over the event.
On October 21, 2025, Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski issued a blunt warning: if Putin’s plane attempts to cross Polish airspace en route to the Budapest meeting, Poland might be compelled to ground the aircraft and hand over the Russian leader to the ICC in The Hague. "I cannot guarantee that an independent Polish court won't order the government to escort such an aircraft down to hand the suspect to the court in The Hague," Sikorski told Radio Rodzina, as reported by Reuters and Newsweek.
This stark message comes in the wake of President Trump’s October 17 announcement that he is preparing to meet Putin in the Hungarian capital in a bid to broker a ceasefire in Ukraine. The planned summit, which Trump says could take place within two weeks, has already drawn intense scrutiny, not only due to its potential impact on the war but also because of the legal jeopardy facing the Russian president.
The ICC’s arrest warrant for Putin, issued in March 2023, accuses him of war crimes, specifically the illegal deportation of hundreds of Ukrainian children from occupied territories to Russia. The Netherlands-based court also issued a warrant for Maria Lvova-Belova, Russia’s commissioner for children’s rights. According to the ICC, "There are reasonable grounds to believe that each suspect bears responsibility for the war crime of unlawful deportation of population and that of unlawful transfer of population from occupied areas of Ukraine to the Russian Federation, in prejudice of Ukrainian children." Russia has flatly rejected the ICC’s authority, calling the warrant "outrageous and unacceptable." (Newsweek)
The legal dilemma is compounded by the European Union’s ban on Russian aircraft in its airspace, imposed shortly after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Any direct route from Moscow to Budapest would require overflight permission from neighboring countries—most of which are either NATO members, ICC signatories, or both. As BBC and The Kyiv Independent report, Poland has been among Ukraine’s strongest supporters, supplying military aid and acting as a vital logistics hub.
Poland’s position is clear: as an ICC member, it is obligated to arrest Putin if he is found on its territory. The question of whether this obligation extends to airspace is less clear-cut. Marko Milanovic, a professor of public international law at the University of Reading, explained to Newsweek, "If Putin was on Polish territory, Poland would have a duty to arrest him. But it's less clear how this applies to travel through a country's airspace." Some legal experts interpret airspace as national territory, while others see it differently. Still, Sikorski’s warning leaves little doubt that Warsaw would act if Putin’s plane entered its skies.
Hungary, the host for the proposed summit, has complicated matters further. Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s government has assured both Washington and Moscow that Putin will not face arrest during his stay, despite the ICC warrant. Hungary has even begun the process of withdrawing from the ICC, though the move will not take effect until mid-2026. Until then, Budapest remains legally bound by the court’s jurisdiction. Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto stated earlier this month, "We will ensure that he [Putin] enters Hungary, has successful negotiations here, and then returns home." (Newsweek)
Hungary’s leniency towards ICC-wanted leaders is not new. In recent years, Budapest has hosted Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who faces similar ICC restrictions. The situation is reminiscent of 2023, when Putin skipped a BRICS summit in South Africa, another ICC member, to avoid possible arrest.
The logistical challenge of getting Putin to Budapest is daunting. Hungary is landlocked, bordered by Austria, Slovakia, Ukraine, Romania, Serbia, Croatia, and Slovenia. Any flight from Moscow would need to avoid Ukrainian airspace and secure passage through at least one EU or NATO country. According to The Kyiv Independent and Newsweek, alternative routes might involve overflying Turkey, Montenegro, Serbia, or Bulgaria. Bulgarian Foreign Minister Georg Georgiev has said Sofia would open an air corridor for Putin if requested, even though Bulgaria is an ICC signatory. However, as Georgiev clarified, Bulgaria is only obliged to detain Putin if he lands, not if he merely passes through its airspace.
Despite the ICC warrant, Putin has managed to travel to other member states in recent years. In 2024 and 2025, he visited Mongolia and Tajikistan—both ICC members—without being arrested, actions that drew criticism from the European Union for failing to uphold international law. EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas commented, "It is not nice that anyone with an ICC arrest warrant would travel to a European country. And again, the question is whether there is any outcome out of this."
As for the summit’s agenda, Trump has framed the meeting as an attempt to bring the "inglorious" war in Ukraine to an end. The former president has pledged to secure a peace deal within 24 hours of taking office, though his previous meeting with Putin in Alaska on August 15, 2025, yielded no real progress. During their most recent phone call on October 16, Putin reportedly demanded that Ukraine cede the entire Donetsk Oblast in exchange for limited concessions in Zaporizhzhia and Kherson oblasts—a proposal that is unlikely to gain traction in Kyiv or among Ukraine’s allies.
Notably, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is not invited to the Budapest talks, though he has expressed willingness to participate and criticized Hungary for its opposition to support for Kyiv. The European Commission has stated that "any meeting that moves forward just and lasting peace in Ukraine is welcome." Still, many in Europe remain skeptical that a Trump-Putin summit could yield a breakthrough, especially given the legal and diplomatic hurdles surrounding Putin’s travel.
With no date yet fixed for the Budapest summit, and pre-summit meetings reportedly postponed, the world is left watching a diplomatic chess game unfold. The outcome could hinge as much on the intricacies of international law and airspace permissions as on the willingness of the parties to negotiate peace.
The coming weeks will reveal whether the planned summit can overcome these formidable obstacles—or whether the shadow of the ICC will keep Putin grounded once again.