Moscow, Russia
Ukraine’s president is calling on all airlines to stop flying over Russia, warning that a surge in drone strikes there is putting commercial planes at risk.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in an address to his country Tuesday evening that “every airline that uses Russian airspace, every insurer, and everyone who still uses Russia’s key airports” that conditions are “becoming completely unsafe.”
Russian airspace has been basically off-limits to Western carriers since the war began in 2022, but the new warning targets airlines the dozens of Asian and Middle Eastern airlines that kept flying over Russia to shave fuel costs and hours off long-haul schedules.
The warning comes because Ukraine’s drone campaign has escalated sharply in recent months, with media describing several hundred drones launched daily and a goal to reach 1,000, striking refineries, warehouses and industrial sites up to 2,000 km inside Russian territory.
Russian officials recently reported a 516-drone assault across multiple regions, with stray drones prompting NATO jets to scramble over Estonia and a strike hitting the Ust-Luga Baltic oil terminal.
Moscow itself had already restricted flights below 5,100 metres around the capital in May after an earlier 600-drone wave.
The Kremlin called Zelenskyy’s warning “state terrorism.”
Airspace closure push
Ukraine isn’t targeting civilian aircraft, Zelenskyy insisted, but Kyiv’s foreign ministry says it will brief the International Civil Aviation Organization and push for a formal airspace-closure designation.
If the designation goes through, airlines would be forced to adjust their routes and schedules immediately, and advisors would face new booking constraints, fluctuating fares and other challenges.
The routes that survived four years of war to save fuel may now face the same insurance and safety scrutiny that pushed Western carriers out in 2022, with MH17 as the industry’s grim reference point.