Ukraine tells ICAO that Russian airspace is unsafe as Pegasus cancels Moscow flights

Ukraine formally told the International Civil Aviation Organization on 3 September that Russian airspace is not safe for civilian flights. Foreign minister Andrii Sybiha posted the notice the same day and asked governments and carriers to stay out.

The letter followed a video address by Volodymyr Zelenskyy on 1 September. He said Ukraine does not aim at passenger aircraft. He also said drones would be in Russian skies on a scale that airlines and insurers have to treat as a fact. Kyrylo Budanov, head of the presidential office, repeated the warning the same evening.

Pegasus Airlines cancelled 12 flights to and from Moscow Vnukovo Airport overnight into 3 September, according to airport data. A Pegasus service from Antalya to Moscow was diverted. Emirates told reporters its schedule was unchanged. Turkish Airlines, Air India, Etihad, Qatar Airways and several Chinese carriers still use Russian airspace. European and American airlines left it in 2022.

What the notice does and does not do

ICAO cannot close another country sky. It can circulate a risk notice. Insurers then reprice hulls and liability. Lessors look at aircraft that still fly into Sheremetyevo, Vnukovo, Pulkovo and Sochi. That is the mechanism Zelenskyy was pointing at when he named insurers in the same sentence as airlines.

Sybiha said Russia has ignored earlier aviation incidents tied to the war. He cited Article 51 of the UN Charter and said Ukraine was giving the warning so that an unintended collision does not become the next headline. The warning is also a statement of intent. Ukrainian sources told European papers the daily drone launch rate is already in the low hundreds and that the production target is 1,000.

Russia has not issued a matching NOTAM that treats its own interior as closed. Moscow public line is that air defences are handling the traffic. Mayor Sergei Sobyanin has repeatedly posted tallies of drones shot down on the approaches to the capital. Those tallies are themselves evidence that the traffic exists.

Who still flies the corridor

After February 2022, Western carriers stopped overflying Russia. Gulf and South Asian carriers kept the shorter polar and trans-Siberian tracks because the extra hours around the war zone cost fuel and crew time. That commercial choice is now priced against a different risk: a dense low-altitude drone war over the same country those jets cross at 35,000 feet.

The altitudes do not overlap in theory. In practice, air-defence missiles, electronic warfare and sudden airport closures do. A diverted Antalya-Moscow flight is a small event. A closed Vnukovo bank of departures is a larger one. If Pulkovo or Sheremetyevo takes the same step, the carriers that stayed will have to publish new city pairs or absorb the hours.

Ukraine own airspace has been closed to civil traffic since the first days of the invasion. The new notice asks the rest of the industry to treat Russia the same way, at least on paper. Whether that happens depends on underwriters in London and on schedulers in Dubai, Doha, Istanbul and Delhi, not on a vote in Montreal.

For passengers the immediate change is uneven. A ticket bought in Istanbul or Doha may still clear Russian airspace this week. A ticket bought in London will not. The ICAO filing makes that split harder to ignore in the next insurance renewal cycle.