An Oscar statuette belonging to Russian director Pavel Talankin who won best documentary this ‌year for Mr Nobody Against Putin has been found after going missing on a flight from New York to Germany, German airline Lufthansa said on Friday.

Talankin had been forced to check the award into hold luggage before boarding a flight from John F ​Kennedy International Airport to Frankfurt, according to a post by his co-director David Borenstein on ​Instagram.

Transportation Security Administration (TSA) agents told Talankin that the 8.5 lb (3.8 kg) statuette posed a ⁠potential security threat, Borenstein said, adding that the award then went missing.

“We can confirm that the Oscar statue has ​now been located and is safely in our care in Frankfurt. We are in direct contact ​with the guest to arrange its personal return as quickly as possible,” a spokesperson for Lufthansa said.

“We sincerely regret the inconvenience caused and have apologised to the owner. The careful and secure handling of our guests’ belongings is ​of the utmost importance to us. An internal review of the circumstances is ongoing.”

The ​TSA did not immediately reply to an emailed request for comment.

“At the airport, a TSA agent stopped him and ‌said ⁠the Oscar could be used as a weapon,” Borenstein said on Instagram about Talankin.

“Pavel didn’t have a bag to check it in, so the TSA put the Oscar in a box and sent it to the bottom of the plane,” he said, posting a series of pictures, including of ​the box.

Speaking to ​the online magazine Deadline ⁠after arriving in Germany on Thursday, Talankin said it was “completely baffling how they consider an Oscar a weapon”.

On previous flights on various airlines, ​he had flown with it “in the cabin, and there never was any ​kind of ⁠problem,” he told the outlet.

Talankin and Borenstein’s documentary used two years of footage that Talankin had recorded at a school where he worked in Russia’s Chelyabinsk region to show how students were exposed to messaging in favour ⁠of ​President Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine.

The 35-year-old Talankin, who fled Russia ​in 2024, has defended the film as a record for posterity to show how “an entire generation became angry and aggressive”.