All UK flights that travel to and over Russia have been banned in retaliation to a British ban on one of Russia’s airlines.
The UK had put a ban on Aeroflot flights in the nation as part of sanctions being imposed on the Russian Government after Vladimir Putin ordered the invasion of Ukraine.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced the ban in parliament and the UK Civil Aviation Authority said it had suspended Aeroflot’s foreign carrier permit.
Now the Russian Civil Aviation Authority has said that all flights by UK carriers to Russia as well as transit flights have been banned, starting on Friday.
READ MORE: Reports world's largest plane destroyed at Ukraine airport
It came after Prime Minister Boris Johnson unveiled the “largest and most severe” package of UK sanctions Russia has faced to punish Vladimir Putin.
They included measures to hit five more oligarchs, including the Russian president’s former son-in-law, and to target more than 100 businesses and individuals.
Mr Johnson said he was sanctioning “all the major manufacturers that support Putin’s war machine”, will ban Aeroflot from touching down planes in the UK and will freeze the assets of all major Russian banks, including immediately against VTB.
However, the UK, the US and the EU are facing calls to go further to exclude Russia from the Swift international payment system, a move backed by the PM but is facing resistance in Europe.
Defence Secretary Ben Wallace had earlier ruled out the UK helping enforce a no-fly zone over Ukraine because the RAF fighting Russian jets would trigger a “war across Europe”.
Yesterday a flight radar showed a huge gap in Ukranian airspace as the Russian invasion on the ground got underway.
READ MORE: Skies empty above Ukraine as war breaks out on ground
Ukraine State Air Traffic Services Enterprise said on its website that the country's airspace was closed to civilian flights from 0045 GMT on Thursday. Air traffic services were suspended.
The European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) said airspace in Russia and Belarus within 100 nautical miles of their borders with Ukraine could also pose safety risks.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel