Zelenskyy Warns Airlines: Russian Skies Are Effectively Closing

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy warned airlines, insurers and users of Russia’s main airports on Sept. 1 that Russian airspace is becoming completely unsafe and will effectively close.

Ukrainian drones will be operating in Russia’s skies on a scale carriers have to take into account, he said in an address published on the Ukrainian presidential website. Russian authorities are not properly informing people about that risk, according to the address.

Ukraine does not threaten civilian aviation and has not targeted a single civilian aircraft, Zelenskyy said, adding that Ukraine does not want innocent lives lost. “Drone-infested skies are no place for civilian aviation,” he said.

He directed the warning at ambassadors posted in Ukraine and in Moscow, who he said should relay it to their capitals, and at airlines flying to Moscow, St. Petersburg and other key Russian destinations. Ukraine’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and other institutions will give international organizations full information about the dangers, he said.

Ukraine is striking Russian military targets and the part of the Russian economy that serves the war effort in self-defense, according to the address. Russian airspace already is a space for Ukrainian drones and missiles and will increasingly become one, Zelenskyy said.

He attached one condition. For the sake of diplomacy and negotiations, Ukraine will clear Russian skies of drones for specified periods and along specified routes whenever partners ask, he said.

Ukraine has done that before. At the request of the Americans, it held off on strikes against Moscow and St. Petersburg on Aug. 25, 26 and 27, while Russian strikes on Ukraine continued, Zelenskyy said. Ukraine also agreed to pause strikes toward Vladivostok for a set period at the request of another global power, which the address did not identify.

New meetings in Moscow are being prepared, and Ukraine will factor that in, he said. He gave no further detail.

Russia has changed its tactics and has been attacking on a much greater scale since August, Zelenskyy said. A Russian ballistic missile hit Kyiv overnight and drones struck other cities, according to the address. Russian missiles also hit a railway depot on Sept. 1 that he said held no military equipment and had nothing to do with the war, and he called the strike terror against civilians. No casualty figures were given.

Russia is trying to destroy Ukraine’s energy system and infrastructure, Zelenskyy said. Millions of Ukrainian children spent Sept. 1 in shelters and studied there, he said, as air raid alerts and Shahed attack drones continued all day.

Ukrainian airspace has been closed to civilian aviation because of Russian strikes, and Russia has tried to blockade Ukraine’s ports since the start of its full-scale aggression, according to the address. Roads, railways, universities, businesses, schools and churches have also come under attack, Zelenskyy said.

The address is the only source supplied for these statements, and its accounts of Russian strikes, Ukrainian drone operations and the pauses could not be independently verified. It contains no Russian response.

Safety will return to Russia’s skies when there is real movement toward peace, he said. Until then, those skies are for drones rather than civilian aviation, for as long as the war continues.