The Russian foreign minister had to fly a roundabout route to reach Malta for the OSCE foreign ministers' meeting since his aircraft has been banned from overflying EU airspace.

Tracking by flightradar 24 shows that Sergey Lavrov's Tupolev Tu-204-300 aircraft had to fly over Turkey and head for the eastern Mediterranean before turning west for Benghazi before landing in Malta.

In so doing, it avoided overflying its neighbour Ukraine, which Russia is invading, as well as Moldova, Romania and Italy, which are on the direct route from Moscow.

The flight took more than seven hours instead of the usual fours hours. It arrived on Wednesday at 10.30pm.

The EU imposed overflying bans on Russian aircraft soon after the invasion of Ukraine. Russia retaliated by imposing a similar ban on flights from EU countries.  

Turkey, which is not in the EU, did not impose such a ban and its airlines are also allowed in Russian airspace.  

Lavrov also goes on a roundabout route when he flies to New York for United Nations meetings, heading north from Moscow onto international airspace, avoiding Europe, before heading west.