{"id":37493,"date":"2026-09-04T20:13:10","date_gmt":"2026-09-04T20:13:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ukraine\/37493\/"},"modified":"2026-09-04T20:13:10","modified_gmt":"2026-09-04T20:13:10","slug":"ukraine-warns-carriers-to-avoid-russian-airspace","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ukraine\/37493\/","title":{"rendered":"Ukraine Warns Carriers to Avoid Russian Airspace"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky this week warned civilian airlines against flying over Russia, saying the country\u2019s airspace will be \u201ceffectively\u201d closed going forward.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cWe want to warn every airline that uses Russian airspace, every insurer, everyone who still uses key Russian airports: the Russian sky is becoming completely dangerous,\u201d Zelensky said in a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnbc.com\/2026\/09\/02\/ukraine-zelenskyy-airlines-russia-drone-war.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\" title=\"statement\">statement<\/a> released Tuesday.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The Ukrainian president emphasized that his government will not target civilian aircraft but said operators should understand the risks of flying through contested and likely hazardous airspace.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cThere will simply be drones in Russia\u2019s skies on a scale that has to be taken into account,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The Russian government labeled Zelensky\u2019s comments an endorsement of \u201cstate terrorism.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">With ground forces <a href=\"https:\/\/airlinegeeks.com\/tag\/russia-ukraine-war\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\" title=\"locked in a slow, grinding struggle\">locked in a slow, grinding struggle<\/a>, Ukraine has turned to drones and missiles to strike deep into Russia. In recent months, it has targeted Russian warehouses, power plants, oil refineries, and air defense sites. Russia has responded by launching missiles at Ukrainian population centers.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">U.S. airlines stopped flying over Russia in February 2022, when the Russian military began its full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Most Western carriers have followed suit, or been banned by Russia\u2019s civil aviation authority.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Today, Russian airspace is mainly used by domestic carriers such as Aeroflot and Rossiya, as well as airlines from China, Turkey, India, and the Gulf states. While perhaps unlikely, a full shutdown would pose serious challenges for operators already dealing with disruptions from the Iran war.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It was not immediately clear this week if any carriers, either within Russia or outside of it, will ground or reroute flights following Ukraine\u2019s warning. Data captured by FlightAware on Friday shows major Russian and Chinese airlines continuing to overfly Russia without significant impediments.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky this week warned civilian airlines against flying over Russia, saying the country\u2019s airspace will&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":37494,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[13080,12563,237,30,373,82,13081,25,26],"class_list":["post-37493","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","tag-air-safety","tag-airlines","tag-drones","tag-europe","tag-featured","tag-news","tag-routes","tag-russia","tag-ukraine"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ukraine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37493","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ukraine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ukraine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ukraine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ukraine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37493"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ukraine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37493\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ukraine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/37494"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ukraine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37493"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ukraine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37493"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ukraine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37493"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}