[Macho MAGA Man]

Appears it was not a direct flight to Russia, but a flight via Dubai. He should have just flown to Dubai and ordered the flight to Saint Petersburg when in Dubai.

He must have ordered in the US the entire flight, meaning the US intelligence were also illegally spying on an American citizen.

He wrongly assumed the Biden regime would not go as far as to pull a citizen off a flight and revoke their passport,

[Wallace T.]

Are there still direct flights from the U.S. to Russia, given the effective low level conflict between the two nations? it may also be that the Dubai authorities tipped off their American counterparts of Ritter’s itinerary.

[billakay]

If he booked the flight via a US travel service (like Expedia, an airline site, etc.) they wouldn't even have allowed him to buy a ticket into Russia (all airports have been removed as destination options). There ARE ways around it, like changing the country setting on the foreign airline website (it is not illegal to travel to Russia, after all).

In any event, I'm sure the State Department has been keeping an eye on him (since the administration considers him an "undesirable"). I'm not certain if he was scheduled to speak at the conference...if so, Foggy Bottom almost certainly knew about it.