On December 27, a cargo aircraft, an Ilyushin Il-62M with tail number W-505TR belonging to the Belarusian airline Rada Airlines, arrived in the Cambodian capital Phnom Penh from Kenya. Its arrival caused a stir in the Thai blogosphere. A representative of Thailand’s royal armed forces was forced to comment on the situation.
The aircraft departed from Vitsyebsk on December 25, landed in the Kenyan city of Mombasa, and then flew on to Phnom Penh. Bloggers noted that the flight route had been deliberately planned to avoid Thai airspace, with the aircraft instead flying through Malaysian airspace. No information was published about what exactly the Belarusian aircraft delivered to Cambodia.
Later, on December 28, the W-505TR aircraft departed Phnom Penh for Sohar in Oman. This time, it flew over Thailand.
Thai authorities were compelled to comment on the situation. The reason was that on December 27 Thailand and Cambodia had reached a ceasefire agreement, and possible arms deliveries to one of the conflicting parties could have jeopardized the deal.
Prapas Sonjaidee, director of the press center for the situation on the Thai-Cambodian border, urged the public to trust the armed forces, stating that the authorities were fully aware of the aircraft’s origin, destination, flight route, payload capacity, and operational range. According to him, intelligence units are closely monitoring the situation.
