Avoid all travel to Russia due to the impacts of the armed conflict with Ukraine, including partial military mobilization, restrictions on financial transactions and increasingly limited flight options. If you are in Russia, you should leave while commercial means are still available.
While Kirby made a comment out of the goodness of his heart and having fear for the American citizen, he had no such words for his new best friends at Emirates, who have also been using Russian airspace and operating all their west coast flights via Russian Airspace.
Russian Airlines Are Flying High Despite Sanctions. The West had sought to largely ground the country's carriers, but they continue to operate by skirting global rules and cannibalizing older planes for parts. An Airbus A321-211 flown by Aeroflot sits at the Geneva airport on March 25, 2022.
The government has recently legalized “cannibalization”: the practice of removing parts from one plane to install them on another. Still, by 2025, Russia is expected to be left with just 70 percent of its foreign-made airplanes. The primary goal for Russian civil aviation right now is to stay afloat until 2030.
When Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, the US and many other Western nations imposed sanctions against Moscow. This included closing off their respective airspace, meaning US airlines and most European carriers cannot currently fly over Russia — a reality reminiscent of the Cold War.
Regulation (EU) 833/2014 prohibits any non-Russian-registered aircraft which is owned or chartered, or otherwise controlled by any Russian natural to land in, take off from or overfly the territory of the Union, except in case of an emergency landing or emergency overflight.
Since the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, numerous airlines have suspended operating over the airspace of the Russian Federation. Countries in Europe and North America have closed their airspace off to Russian aircraft and have since felt reciprocal retaliation from the Kremlin forcing reroutes around Russia.