Citing “unfriendly decisions” by Warsaw, Prague, and Sofia, in response to Russian aggression in Ukraine, Russia’s federal aviation agency announced that it closes its airspace to its airspace for passenger airlines owned by companies in Poland, the Czech Republic, and Bulgaria, or registered in those countries.
The ban on Bulgarian, Czech and Polish airlines comes in effect today, Saturday, February 26 at 3pm Moscow time.
Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Romania also announced today that they will close their airspace to Russian planes. However, Moscow has yet to retaliate against those countries.
Numerous countries have shut their airspace to Russian carriers in solidarity with Ukraine. Russia launched a brutal full-scale assault against its neighbor early Thursday morning. Ukraine and the rest of the world say the assault was entirely unprovoked.
The United Kingdom was the first country to ban flights by Aeroflot, Russia’s flagship carrier, over its territory on Friday, and later unveiled a ban on Russian private jets. Moscow retaliated the same day, barring UK airlines from its airspace.