Russian skies are becoming a new front in the war as Zelenskyy urges airlines to stay away

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has called on foreign airlines to stop flying to Russia, saying the expanding reach of Ukrainian drone attacks has turned Russian airspace into a zone of persistent danger for civilian aviation.

Speaking on 1 September, Zelenskyy directed his warning not only at airlines but also at insurers and governments whose citizens continue to use Russian airports.

“Russian skies are becoming completely unsafe,” he said. According to the president, Ukraine does not regard civilian aircraft as targets, but the growing number of drones over Russian territory is creating a threat that airlines can no longer ignore.

“There is no place for civilian aviation among drones,” Zelenskyy added, specifically referring to flights serving Moscow, St Petersburg and other major Russian destinations.

The statement was one of Kyiv’s most explicit warnings to foreign carriers since the beginning of the full-scale war. Zelenskyy did not explain, however, whether it signalled a further expansion of Ukrainian attacks, the emergence of new areas of risk or a shift towards more intensive operations near Russia’s largest airports.

Ukrainian drones have repeatedly forced Russian authorities to close airports temporarily and impose restrictions on arrivals and departures. Such measures have affected not only Moscow but also St Petersburg, Kazan, Nizhny Novgorod, Samara, Sochi and cities in the North Caucasus. In June 2026, all four major Moscow airports temporarily suspended operations during one of the largest drone attacks on the capital region.

Russian President Vladimir Putin described Zelenskyy’s appeal as a “declaration of state terrorism” and said Moscow would find a way to respond. Kyiv, for its part, says it is striking military facilities, oil refineries and other infrastructure supporting Russia’s war machine.

The first visible response from the aviation industry was more cautious than the Kremlin’s rhetoric. On 2 September, the Turkish low-cost airline Pegasus cancelled six flights between Moscow and Turkey. Passengers were offered the option of rescheduling their journeys or receiving refunds. Other Turkish carriers nevertheless continued flying to Vnukovo airport, which, according to reports from Moscow, received 16 aircraft from Turkey.

As of 2 September, Azerbaijan Airlines had not announced a new suspension of services to Russia. For Baku, however, Zelenskyy’s warning has particular significance.

On 25 December 2024, an AZAL Embraer 190 flying from Baku to Grozny was damaged while approaching its destination in Russian airspace and later crashed near Aktau in Kazakhstan. Thirty-eight of the 67 people on board were killed. Azerbaijan’s president, Ilham Aliyev, said the aircraft had been unintentionally hit by fire from the ground over Russia. Kazakhstan’s preliminary investigation found multiple punctures and damage to the aircraft’s hydraulic systems caused by “foreign objects” penetrating its structure.

The disaster became a stark warning about the danger of allowing passenger aircraft, attack drones and active air-defence systems to operate in the same airspace. In its aftermath, AZAL first suspended flights to Grozny and Makhachkala and then halted services to several other Russian cities, including Sochi, Volgograd, Ufa, Samara, Mineralnye Vody, Nizhny Novgorod, Vladikavkaz and Saratov. The carrier subsequently cancelled individual Russian flights on several occasions because of temporary airport closures and airspace restrictions.

After the disaster, the European Union Aviation Safety Agency advised carriers to avoid a significant part of Russian airspace, citing the danger that air-defence systems could misidentify civilian aircraft. Most airlines from the EU, the UK and the US already avoid Russian airspace because of sanctions and the risks associated with the war. Some carriers from China, Turkey, the Gulf states, Central Asia and the South Caucasus, however, continue to use Russian routes.

Zelenskyy’s appeal is therefore effectively directed at the airlines that have maintained their services despite expert warnings and periodic closures of Russian airports. Abandoning these routes would lengthen journeys and increase fuel costs and ticket prices. Continuing to use them, by contrast, means accepting a danger that is becoming increasingly difficult to describe as exceptional or temporary.

The AZAL disaster demonstrated that the threat does not come from drones alone. The response to them — including the activation of air-defence systems, disruption of satellite navigation, sudden airport closures and inadequate coordination between military and civilian air-traffic controllers — may be just as dangerous.

Zelenskyy’s statement has not yet prompted a mass withdrawal of foreign carriers. But it has defined a new reality of the war: Russian skies, long kept open to part of international aviation, are rapidly becoming an extension of the battlefield. Every airline maintaining these routes must now decide whether the commercial benefits can justify a risk about which it has been publicly warned.