Russia vows to keep skies open as Zelensky warns of drone threat
Russian authorities have pledged to prevent major disruption to domestic aviation after President Zelensky warned that Kyiv's drone campaign was making Russian airspace too dangerous for commercial flights.
Russian transportation authorities have vowed to prevent any significant disruption to domestic air travel, responding to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky's warning that Kyiv's drone strikes were rendering Russian airspace increasingly perilous for commercial aviation. Transportation Minister Andrei Nikitin insisted that civil aviation officials were "constantly improving flight safety and airport security requirements" and possessed "solutions for all of this," working in close coordination with the Defence Ministry and the National Guard.
The minister's assurances came after Ukraine formally notified the International Civil Aviation Organization that Russian airspace is unsafe for commercial flights, a move that appeared to have an almost immediate impact on domestic schedules. According to the flight tracking service Flightradar24, Moscow's Sheremetyevo airport recorded 21 cancelled flights and 235 delays on Wednesday, while Vnukovo airport saw 22 cancellations and 94 delays. Turkish carrier Pegasus Airlines confirmed it had cancelled some flights to Russia for "technical and operational" reasons, though it did not elaborate.
Aviation risk advisory firm Osprey Flight Solutions warned clients that while the majority of Ukrainian drone and missile strikes were likely to occur within 300 kilometres of the border, daily attacks deeper inside Russia, including near Moscow and St Petersburg, were near-certain through 2026. The alert noted that "there is also a realistic possibility that the frequency of Ukrainian strikes will continue to increase in the short term deep inside Russian territory," and assessed that miscalculation or misidentification was likely in areas related to the conflict. The disruption highlights the expanding reach of Ukraine's campaign against Russian infrastructure, as Moscow struggles to maintain normalcy in its aviation sector while confronting a war that has increasingly brought the realities of combat to its own cities and transport networks.