At least 40 passengers on a flight from Tel Aviv that arrived at Moscow’s Domodedovo Airport on April 19 were held by security officers for about five hours. One eyewitness told Mediazona that throughout that time, those who had landed were left without food, water or access to a toilet. The group included both dual Russian-Israeli nationals and Israeli citizens traveling on Israeli passports alone.
According to the witness, the officers behaved boorishly and pressed passengers to unlock their phones, but after meeting refusal, settled for demanding that the devices be switched off.
The Israelis were then called in one by one for what was described as a “conversation.” During those exchanges, some were told, according to the eyewitness, that Iran is an ally of Russia, and that an enemy of Iran “is our enemy as well.” Passengers were also made to understand that their visit to Moscow was “unwelcome” and that they “should not have come.”
In the end, the passengers were required to sign unspecified “warnings”—which Mediazona suggested were likely the standard notice on the “inadmissibility of violating the law”—after which they were all released. The eyewitness noted that when the papers were handed over, the officers changed their tone and acted “very politely and carefully.”