For months, drone strikes by Ukraine have forced the suspension of flights to and from airports in Russia. Moscow's Domodedovo, Sheremetyevo, Zhukovsky and Vnukovo airports have had to shut down operations almost daily in October, according to reports from the independent investigative media outlet Agentstvo. On some days, the airports were reportedly closed for up to nine hours.
In early September, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy announced that Ukraine would seek to cut off the airspace around Moscow and other destinations in Russia. "Today, we would like to warn every airline that uses Russian airspace, every insurer, and everyone who continues to use major Russian airports: Russian airspace will become completely unsafe," Zelenskyy said.
The following day, Ukraine sent a corresponding warning to the International Civil Aviation Organization.
Ukraine's airspace has been closed since the start of Russia's full-scale invasion in February 2022.
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Russia's aviation authority, Rosaviatsiya, has issued an emergency safety "carpet" protocol that is designed to immediately shut down the airspace over a specific region or around affected airports if an aircraft violates Russian airspace, weapons are used, or unidentified objects appear in the skies. Once the protocol is announced, drastic restrictions apply to all air traffic.
"If there is a military threat, a specific section of airspace is closed off, and this carpet is declared," Oleksandr Laneckij, the chief executive officer of the Friendly Avia Support consultancy, told DW. "Essentially, every drone poses a military threat."
Laneckij noted that Yemen's Houthis have managed to significantly disrupt Saudi airspace. "I think Ukraine's military capabilities far exceed those of the Houthis," Laneckij said.
The military analyst Jan Matvejev also said Ukraine would have little trouble severely disrupting Moscow-area air traffic. Though Ukraine has not yet managed to completely shut down Russian airspace as Zelenskyy plans, Matvejev said, its armed forces "remain committed to this idea."
"To close off the airspace and trigger the 'carpet' plan, all you need are simple drones that don't have to be equipped with a warhead or even have a long range," Matvejev said. Ukraine's arms industry can produce hundreds of combat-ready long-range drones in a day, he added. That is why he believes Ukraine could have the necessary resources to shut down Moscow's airports.
Indeed, Ukraine's efforts to shut down Russian airspace are "just getting started," Simon Shuster wrote in October in the US magazine The Atlantic, citing well-informed sources.
Can Russia stop Ukraine's drones?
Matvejev said Russia's air-defense systems were not entirely effective in efforts to prevent Ukrainian drones from penetrating Moscow's airspace. "If it were possible to shoot them down, they would have done so by now," he said. He added that Russia would have deployed additional air-defense troops if they were available.
Laneckij said Russia might lower the threshold for declaring the carpet protocol, which could increase the risk of deadly incidents such as the 2024 Christmas day crash of an Azerbaijan Airlines flight. Investigators say the flight was struck by a Russian air-defense missile that was being used to defend against drones, killing 38 people.
Matvejev seconded the fear that Russia's defenses could again mistakenly target civilian aircraft instead of military objects. He said little had changed about Russia's air-defense protocol since the Azeri flight was shot in 2024.
In an operation against a low-flying drone, the target is visually identified and fired upon with a machine gun. In such a scenario, the danger to aircraft is extremely low, unless they happen to be flying in the immediate vicinity.
The risk to civil aviation increases significantly when anti-aircraft missiles are deployed, Matvejev said. A missile could have defects that are practically unavoidable in mass production and could veer toward an aircraft flying nearby. Matvejev said such defense measures could not guarantee the safety of civilian aircraft during operations.
He said drones did not have to carry explosives to be disruptive. A collision between an airplane and a basic drone can have serious consequences — and, he said, a drone sent from Ukraine all the way to Moscow must be relatively large, "weighting dozens of kilograms."
In the summer of 2023, Ukrainian armed forces attacked the airport in the Russian city of Pskov, where both military and civilian aircraft were parked. Earlier this month, drone debris fell on the Sochi airport, on Russia's Black Sea coast.
Russia also attacks Ukraine's airports. In September, Zelenskyy said Kyiv's airport had been struck, as well as the Boryspil airport near the capital.
How will international airlines react?
Laneckij said three factors would determine whether international airlines suspend their flights to Russia: the military threat, the degree of demand and the insurance cost.
He said issues could emerge around insurance. When insurers rate the security risk of flying to Russia as very high, they could significantly raise their rates for aircraft headed there. This would cause ticket prices to skyrocket.
Competition within Russia's aviation market has already declined because many airlines are no longer in business, Laneckij said. This has increased demand for tickets from the remaining foreign airlines.
"Whether they stay or not depends on the price they have to pay for the danger faced," he said.
This article was translated from German.