According to the “Kleine Zeitung (Friday edition)”, the Ministry of Defense sees no problems with neutrality law. An expert does.
According to the newspaper, “large Boeing or Hercules transport planes take off from Pisa and head for Rzeszów”. The Ukrainian army is supplied with Western weapons via this eastern Polish city. The flight movements can be tracked on the publicly accessible online pages “Flightradar24” or “itamilradar”, which signpost civil and military flight movements in real time.
Italian media, such as the daily newspaper “La Repubblica”, therefore assume that the arms deliveries promised by the Italian government will reach the crisis region in this way. The Ministry of Defense in Vienna sees no problems with this, according to the “Kleine Zeitung”.
500 military machines monthly
Around 500 military aircraft, mainly those of NATO, cross Austrian airspace every month, which is covered by the 2001 Troop Residence Act. Every flight must be “reported in advance”. “The decisive factor is whether it is the machine of a warring country. That is not the case here,” Defense Ministry spokesman Michael Bauer told the “Kleine Zeitung”. “American, German, Italian military overflights are not a problem. There would only be a veto against Ukrainian or Russian military machines – because both countries are at war.”
Whenever a military aircraft wants to pass Austria, it only has to be announced whether it is armed or not. According to the Ministry of Defense, what is loaded is not to be reported. The Viennese international law expert Ralph Janik is nevertheless critical of the Italian overflights. “We’re pretty much testing our neutrality there,” he was quoted as saying in the report. Although Italy is not involved in the war, it is supporting one of the warring factions with the deliveries.
Source: Nachrichten
