[1] During the Bosnian war, between 17 April and 3 May 1992, Popov, flying the Boeing 707 freight aircraft "Kikaš" (so-called because it had been seized from the Croatian-Canadian businessman Anton Kikaš when he attempted to smuggle arms to Croatia in it) successfully evacuated about 40,000 people from Sarajevo airport during fighting in and around the city.

Popov claimed in an interview that initially he had not been given permission to fly to Stockholm, but he had personally been in radio contact with UN Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali who had given him a 24-hour window to evacuate the Yugoslav team.

Zlatan Kikic, the Yugoslav ambassador to Sweden who was due to fly back to Yugoslavia with embassy staff on the same flight, then raised $2000 in cash and paid the Norwegian state petroleum company Statoil (now Equinor) to refuel the aircraft.

Popov then flew the aircraft with the Yugoslav football team and embassy staff back to Belgrade, arriving shortly before the end of his 24-hour window for completing the flight.

He was subsequently married to Snezana Jovanovic Popov, a former member of the Serbian national basketball team, with whom he had a daughter.