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Russia announced on Saturday the closure of its airspace for planes linked to Bulgaria, Poland and the Czech Republic, after a similar decision taken by Warsaw, Prague and Sofia against Russian airlines.
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“Due to the unfriendly decisions of the air authorities of Bulgaria, Poland and the Czech Republic from 15:00 Moscow time (12:00 GMT) on February 26, 2022” Russia closes its airspace to “airlines from these countries and/or those registered there,” Russian air regulator Rosaviatsia said.
This closure also concerns transit flights.
Derogations are however possible in the event of the issuance of a special authorization from Rosaviatsia or the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, according to the Russian regulator.
Poland, the Czech Republic and Bulgaria announced Friday the closure of their airspace to Russian airlines, following the aggression of Ukraine by Moscow.
The Polish national company LOT also announced the suspension of its flights to Moscow and Saint Petersburg on Friday afternoon.
These announcements follow a similar decision, hitting the Russian national company Aeroflot, taken Thursday by Great Britain.
Russia for its part reacted by prohibiting the overflight of its territory to all planes linked to the United Kingdom, including flights in transit.
Moldova had closed its airspace on Thursday.
On Saturday, Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas announced on Twitter that his country was closing its airspace to Russian airlines.
“We call on all EU member countries to do so,” she added.
Slovenian Prime Minister Janez Jansa quoted his Estonian counterpart’s tweet, stressing that Slovenia would apply the same measure.
And Latvian Minister of Transport Talis Linkaits indicated, still on Twitter, that his country was going to “close its airspace to airlines registered in Russia, for commercial flights”, specifying that this decision would be formally approved at the next Council of Ministers. .
Dutch airline KLM announced on Saturday that it was canceling all flights to Russia for the next seven days after the EU decided on sanctions against Moscow.
“KLM has decided to cancel all flights to Russia that were scheduled for the next 7 days,” the Air France-KLM group company said in a statement, adding that it would also no longer fly over Russia en route to. other destinations during this period.
“The immediate reason for this is the fact that due to the sanctions package that has been agreed in a European context, aircraft spare parts can no longer be sent to Russia,” she explained.
“This means that we can no longer guarantee that flights to and over Russia will be able to return safely” to the Netherlands, continued KLM, which normally serves Saint Petersburg and Moscow.
The European Union on Thursday adopted an unprecedented package of sanctions against Russia in response to the invasion of Ukraine, shortly before London and Washington in turn tightened restrictions, without taking drastic measures.
KLM announced on February 12 the suspension of flights to Ukraine until further notice, just after the Dutch government had advised its nationals to leave the country due to the deterioration of the security situation.
The subject is particularly sensitive in the Netherlands since the 2014 crash of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur, shot down over eastern Ukraine, killing all 283 passengers on board – including 196 Dutch nationals – and all 15 crew members.
Moscow has always denied any involvement.