Monitoring Desk:
European Union (EU) has imposed a ban on Russian planes in its airspace after the Ukraine invasion. “We are shutting down EU airspace for Russian-owned, Russian-registered, or Russian-controlled aircraft,” the head of the EU Commission Ursula von der Leyen said. All such planes, including the private jets of oligarchs, will now be unable to land in, take off from or fly over any EU nation. Russian planes have also been banned from UK airspace.
Russia’s biggest airline, Aeroflot, said it would cancel all flights to European destinations until further notice in a retaliatory move on Sunday. Ahead of the decision, European countries had been closing their airspace one by one. Germany said its ban would last three months. Departure boards at Moscow’s Domodedovo and Sheremetyevo airports showed dozens of cancellations on Sunday, including flights to Paris, Vienna and Kaliningrad. Russia’s S7 Airlines said on Facebook it would cancel flights to many of its European destinations until at least 13 March.
