A passenger plane wrote the word 'RELAX' with its flight path over the Ukraine border while fears of armed conflict mount
- A passenger plane wrote the word 'RELAX" in the sky near Ukraine, drawing lines with its flight path.
- The plane took off from Chisinau, the capital of Ukraine's neighbor, Moldova.
A passenger plane flying near Ukraine's border embarked on an unlikely mission on Thursday afternoon — urging everyone to "relax" amid mounting fears of war breaking out in the region.
The Air Moldova passenger plane with the code RELAX took to the air from the Moldovan capital of Chisinau at 4:12 p.m. local time. It stayed in the air for an hour and 38 minutes, writing "RELAX" with its flight path.
People on the live air traffic tracking website FlightRadar24 watched as the Airbus A321 painted the words in the sky.
According to Vice, around 60,000 people tuned in to FlightRadar24 to follow the plane as it forged ahead on its unlikely diplomatic mission, cruising just miles away from the Ukrainian border.
The flight landed back at Chisinau at 5.50 p.m.
Air Moldova is the national airline of Ukraine's southern neighbor. Representatives for the company did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Insider.
The move comes as fears mount that an armed conflict could soon break out between Russia and Ukraine. There has been a buildup of tens of thousands of Russian troops along Ukraine's border amid a security standoff between the US and Russia.
President Joe Biden on Thursday warned that there is a "very high" risk that Russia will invade Ukraine in the next few days. For its part, Russia warned this Thursday that it could be "forced to respond" militarily if the US does not acquiesce to security guarantees, like barring Ukraine and Georgia's membership from NATO.
Russia also ratcheted up the tension in Ukraine, expelling the second-highest-ranking US diplomat in Moscow on Thursday.