Zelenskyy, Close the Sky: Could Drone Attacks Deal a Final Blow to Russia's Air Travel?

Over the past few years, just about everyone has been talking about the need to deprive Russia of the luxury of stable air service. News of the chaos at airports during isolated drone attacks targeting Moscow, St. Petersburg, or other major cities not only warmed the hearts of ordinary Ukrainians but also underscored the need to maintain constant pressure on the Russians.

However, after it became clear that Ukraine was capable of closing the skies over all the aggressor country’s key airports, no results of such pressure were visible for a very long time. Even when Volodymyr Zelenskyy announced a campaign to disrupt airport operations, there were no significant changes in airport operations for a long time.

It was only after nearly a month and a half that the operation – allegedly developed with the assistance of Minister of Defense Mykhailo Fedorov under the code name “M&M’s” – began to look like a truly systematic effort.

Channel 24 explains why it is so important for Ukraine to disrupt operations at Russia’s key airports – how to make the business community and elites of the occupying state suffer at a relatively low cost to the Defense Forces.

Without air travel, Russia faces major upheavals

To fully analyze the consequences of a sustained and prolonged closure of Russian airspace, one must first understand just how critical air travel is for Russia. The fact is that due to its vast territory, challenging weather conditions, and an extremely inadequate management model, the vast majority of regions are effectively cut off from land-based connections to the center.

A country where approximately a quarter of the total population lives on 75% of its territory is unable to provide rail connections even to its central regions.

Russia’s remote regions do not even have road access to the “mainland” due to a lack of roads. For them, air transport is the only way to deliver food, medicine, and simply move people around. This is especially true given that, following the start of the full-scale invasion, Russia has completely shifted its trade eastward, and both of its main rail arteries are operating literally at the limits of their capacity. In other words, neither the Trans-Siberian nor the Baikal-Amur Mainline is capable of increasing passenger traffic if needed, as they are already jam-packed with goods destined for China and elsewhere.

Furthermore, air travel is crucial for sustaining the resource-based economy of this “gas station” nation. Diamond, gold, oil, and gas deposits are located in areas that can only be reached by air. So without flights for tens of thousands of workers in the extractive industries, the empire would literally collapse.

Air travel is no less critical for politicians, security officials, and businesspeople. The power structure built by the successors of the KGB requires officials, law enforcement officers, and other Putin loyalists to constantly travel from Moscow to the remote regions and back. This is a sort of “rotation system.” Since train travel (if even possible) within Russia can sometimes take more than a week, the regime can forget about effectively governing the country if air service is unavailable.

Blocking the operations of Russia’s key airports is strategically important for Ukraine for several reasons: economic and socio-political.

According to experts’ estimates, just one night of downtime at Moscow’s airports costs the aggressor state $15–20 million in losses. During the day, one hour of complete shutdown costs between 2.5 and 4 million in currency units.

These are only direct losses, not accounting for the consequences of disrupted cargo and passenger flights, which trigger a chain reaction and multiply financial losses. Indirect losses from delays can cost businesses and the state enormous sums. A single drone circling close to the airspace of the Russian capital forces the enemy to pay out staggering sums – hundreds of thousands of times the cost of such a UAV.

As for the socio-political aspect, for many Russians, being stranded at the airport means finally facing the consequences of the war launched by the Kremlin for the first time. In this way, Moscow has established a new “social contract” with the middle class, implying that they may suffer from the aggression only economically. The elites, on the other hand, are largely profiting from the war and experience no inconvenience whatsoever.

The average resident of St. Petersburg or Moscow has grown accustomed to the idea that the “special military operation” is taking place somewhere on the periphery and has nothing to do with them. Instead, they must pay taxes, at least pretend to support the government’s actions, and go about their normal lives. But spending several days in a crowded airport forces every Russian to ask themselves a simple question: “What happened?”, and perhaps finally realize that the war unleashed by the leadership now directly affects them personally, rather than some ephemeral “future generations.”

Chaos at Russian Airports: Watch the Video

In fact, this is the only way Ukraine can have any tangible impact on a large segment of the Russian population that, until now, has not felt the effects of the war firsthand, and force the elites and the middle class to become dissatisfied with a regime that is incapable of providing them with all the familiar benefits of civilization.

The presence of Ukrainian UAVs in Russian airspace, oddly enough, could also have a direct impact on Putin. It’s no coincidence that on October 9, planes from the dictator's entourage were unable to land at Vnukovo for several hours. At that time, one of the Il-96-300PU aircraft changed course to St. Petersburg, while three others, after circling for a long time, eventually landed at their destination – but only after the all-clear.

Putin’s escort planes, with the Russian “Führer” on board, were unable to land due to the “Carpet” (Ukrainian for “kylym”) plan at Moscow airports / Screenshot from FlightRadar

Thus, shutting down airports in at least two of Russia’s major cities is the simplest way to directly impact those representatives of the aggressor nation who are completely unaffected by the war.

Moreover, from an economic and political standpoint, operations to disrupt airport operations are highly asymmetric, since the cost of drones heading toward Moscow is incomparable to the enemy’s losses. And the consequences of a truly long-term closure of the airspace over key cities will push Russia, if not to collapse, then to serious upheaval.

Between Defeat and Victory: Why Russia’s Airspace Has Not Yet Been Closed

Despite the fact that in October 2026 the number of airport closures in the European part of Russia increased significantly, it is still too early to speak of a critical situation. Although Vnukovo, Zhukovsky, and Sheremetyevo are forced to cancel or delay flights at night, these airports are largely operational during the day.

Of course, it would be inaccurate to say that key airports are functioning normally during daylight hours, since after 5–7 or more hours of airspace closures, it takes a long time to overcome the consequences of the delays. In fact, a single night of downtime literally pushes the schedule back by an entire day and also makes flights economically unfeasible. After all, in the event of delays, airlines are required to provide passengers with cold drinks, meals, and even hotel accommodations at their own expense, and in the event of flight cancellations, to refund ticket costs. Both of these factors wipe out any potential profits from operating flights and, in some cases, even push airlines into the red.

Every delayed or canceled flight leads to chaos at Russian airports / Photo: Rosaviatsiya

This is precisely why foreign companies independent of the Russian government are increasingly canceling certain flights to and from Moscow. For example, Turkey’s Pegasus Airlines has retained only 2 of its 8 flights, while its competitor, Turkish Airlines, has canceled 2 scheduled routes from Istanbul to Vnukovo. In October, Flydubai, Kuwait Airways, Emirates, and Qatar Airways also removed flights from their schedules; however, despite general restrictions at 22 airports across Russia, none of the foreign airlines has announced its withdrawal from this “terrorist state.”

For Ukraine’s attacks to leave Russia without airlines from countries friendly to it, they still lack consistency. Despite the numerous losses incurred by the airlines, it remains profitable for them to operate flights and fly over Russian territory. However, if flight cancellations increase, the situation could shift dramatically in the opposite direction.

International airlines – one step away from leaving Russia / Screenshot from video

In addition, the Kremlin is doing everything in its power to prevent foreign companies from suspending flights, as the Russians would be unable to cover all flights on their own: Russia’s entire aircraft fleet is being operated to the point of wear and tear despite inadequate maintenance. This is especially true for aircraft stolen from lessors in 2022.

To reassure their partners, Russian officials have repeatedly stated that flight safety is within normal limits. However, insurance companies cannot be reassured by empty promises: military risks in the skies of a terrorist state are already on the rise, and flight delays resulting from the “Kover” plan are increasingly being classified as insured events.

In fact, Moscow currently finds itself at a crossroads: either it must acknowledge that its own airspace is dangerous and suspend flights (as it did on the night of February 23–24, 2022), or hope that Kyiv will stop sending drones toward key airfields, and that it won’t come to a boycott by international airlines.

There is no way to protect Russia’s airports, as there isn’t enough air defense to cover other facilities that are more critical to Putin.

Consistency is the sole deciding factor

So, for civilian air traffic (at least in the European part of Russia) to be, if not reduced to zero, then significantly curtailed due to airport closures, only one thing is needed: constant flights by Ukrainian drones.

Of course, if unidentified drones – for example, at night – were to reach the hangar complex at Vnukovo Airport, foreign companies would leave Russia within a matter of hours. After all, the real risks of losing an aircraft or spending millions of dollars on its repair by no means offset the potential profits from a handful of flights with uncertain prospects in an unstable country.

However, without such significant incentives to act, we can only hope that Kyiv will have enough political will – and that the Defense Forces representatives in charge of the operation will have enough drones – to carry out the project of closing the skies over Moscow.

Because with every day that airports remain closed for even a few hours, the losses only mount, and the number of problems for businesses and the state is growing exponentially; and if the Russians do not come up with a successful countermeasure, the operation of many airports will effectively be pointless.

For now, we can state that the owners of foreign airlines strongly believe in the good faith of the operators of “unknown drones,” but they seem to overlook the fact that blackmail from so-called "allies" and Russia’s genocidal attacks – which from the very beginning have disregarded the rules of war – and, starting in the fall of 2026, completely went off the rails, may simply leave Ukraine with no other options.