Two of Moscow’s busiest airports suspended flight operations for a second consecutive night this week after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky warned airlines, insurers and foreign governments that Russian airspace was becoming what he called de facto closed because of the risk from Ukrainian drone strikes.
Russia’s federal aviation agency, Rosaviatsia, confirmed it had imposed what it described as temporary restrictions on arrivals and departures at Sheremetyevo and Vnukovo airports. Flight-tracking data cited by multiple outlets showed 21 cancellations and 235 delays at Sheremetyevo and 22 cancellations and 94 delays at Vnukovo over the affected period.
Zelensky’s warning
In his evening address on September 1, Zelensky told airlines directly that “Russian skies are becoming completely dangerous,” a message aimed at pressuring international carriers and insurers to treat continued flights into Russian airspace as an active risk rather than a routine wartime inconvenience. Ukraine has for months used long-range drone strikes to target Russian energy infrastructure and military sites, and officials in Kyiv have increasingly framed disruption to civil aviation as a deliberate pressure tactic.
Rosaviatsia rejected the framing, calling Ukraine’s aviation notice “illegitimate” and arguing that any Ukrainian-issued restrictions on Russian airspace carry no legal standing under the Convention on International Civil Aviation. Russian officials have not disputed that flights were in fact suspended, only the legal basis Kyiv cited for the warning.
Not a new tactic, but an escalating one
Forcing partial shutdowns of Russian civilian airports using the threat of drone incursions is a tactic Ukraine has used intermittently for more than a year, but the back-to-back nightly disruptions this week mark one of the more sustained interruptions to Moscow air travel since the war’s early phases. Several foreign airlines have already suspended or scaled back Russia-bound routes in recent months, and aviation trade publications have reported some carriers rerouting or canceling flights following Zelensky’s latest statement.
Neither Moscow nor Kyiv has indicated the disruptions are likely to ease in the near term, and the restrictions come as fighting along other fronts of the war continues largely unabated.
Source reporting: Agence France-Presse via Yahoo News and ABC News.
