Ukraine has urged the United Nations aviation agency to back a full ban on civil flights in Russian airspace, following presidential warnings that the region is becoming unsafe. The push builds on a long-running campaign of long-range drone operations designed to disrupt Russian civilian aviation and exert economic pressure.
The campaign to restrict flights over the Russian Federation entered a new strategic phase as Kyiv pressed international regulators to intervene. Ukrainian officials urged the U.N.’s aviation agency to ask its member states to prohibit civilian operations within Russian skies. Ukrainian officials say the country would retaliate further following Russian strikes on Kyiv, and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky cautioned airlines and their insurers on Tuesday that Russian airspace “is becoming completely unsafe.”
While European and U.S. carriers do not fly over Russia due to the war that erupted when Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, the airspace is used by airlines from countries such as China, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates and other Gulf states.
Escalating Pressures and the Push at ICAO
The diplomatic push at the International Civil Aviation Organization materialized in a letter to International Civil Aviation Organization Chairman Juan Carlos Salazar, a copy of which was exclusively shared with Reuters. Ukraine’s Infrastructure Minister Mykola Kalashnyk said Kyiv believed the risk of tragedies in the skies should be minimised, and Ukraine asked ICAO to encourage aviation authorities and airlines to safeguard civil aviation, “including by facilitating the full prohibition by ICAO member states of civil aircraft operations within the airspace of the Russian Federation.”
“There will simply be drones in Russia’s skies on a scale that has to be taken into account,” Volodymyr Zelensky said.
President Volodymyr Zelensky expanded on the warning during subsequent addresses, noting that some commercial carriers had already stopped service to Russia. Zelensky said in his evening address September 2: “We have received information that the first airlines began to refuse flights to Russian airports after our announcement about the drone danger, which objectively exists in the skies of Russia. This is a correct, completely logical response to the available facts… We must protect lives. Ukraine has already officially informed international organizations and partners about the true state of Russian skies.” Zelensky also added that Ukraine would only target Russian military facilities and not threaten civilian aircraft, but he stressed that the growing number of Ukrainian drones in Russian skies should “be taken into account.” Zelensky stated: “The Russian sky will be de facto closed.”
From Operation Carpet to a Strategic Blockade
The current diplomatic strategy is underpinned by tactical drone operations. Ukraine is planning to step up the presence of its drones near Russian airports to compel their closure, while warning international airlines to re-evaluate the safety of flying there, as part of its effort to disrupt Russia’s economy and pressure Moscow to end the war. Behind his comments, the Ukrainian military said, is a plan to put so many drones in the air near Russian airports that the temporary closures—already increasingly common—become a complete shutdown. Ukraine’s Security Service (SBU) began Operation Carpet in the spring of last year, with the aim of disrupting Russian airport operations by deliberately flying drones over them, people familiar with the matter, who did not want to be named for security reasons, told the Kyiv Independent. Rather than striking airport infrastructure itself, the objective was to force Russian authorities to shut down or restrict air traffic when the drones were detected in the surrounding airspace, allowing Ukraine to disrupt Russian civilian and military aviation without striking airport infrastructure, something Ukraine’s international partners had specifically warned Kyiv against doing. Ukrainian officials have vowed to avoid targeting airliners and civilian deaths, scaling up so-called Operation Carpet under which drones circulate near Russian airports, forcing air-traffic control to pause takeoffs and landings. Ukrainian drones began causing such temporary closures in the summer of 2023, and the number of closures has grown steadily since then, surging in recent months.
“This is no longer simply a repetition of isolated, sporadic emergency alerts; it is a transition to constant pressure aimed at paralyzing civilian air traffic in the European part of the Russian Federation,” Serhiy Bratchuk, spokesman for the Ukrainian Armed Forces’ Southern Command, told The Wall Street Journal.
While ICAO cannot impose rules on its 193 member countries, its decisions influence national policies, and the Montreal-based U.N. agency uses consensus to set standards on everything from runways to seat belts. Coinciding with Kyiv’s petition, ICAO on Wednesday warned in a statement, without mentioning any specific country, that the risk of weapons targeting commercial planes is growing and called for stronger commitments from countries to protect aircraft from conflict zone risks.
Ukraine says Russian airspace no longer safe, vows to shut it down with drones. #ukraine #russia
Moscow pushed back sharply against the diplomatic and operational campaign. Russian President Vladimir Putin said Zelenskiy’s comments amount to “state terrorism.” Meanwhile, top Ukrainian officials said the country would step up retaliation against Russia’s intensified strikes on Kyiv, which has been under continuous air raid alerts for seven days and has suffered hits on civilian infrastructure.
