Moscow Airports Shut Down for Hours Daily as Drone Alerts Spread

Moscow's four major airports have repeatedly halted flights this month as drone warnings trigger a Russian aviation safety procedure.

According to the independent investigative outlet Agentstvo, Domodedovo, Sheremetyevo, Zhukovsky and Vnukovo have suspended operations almost daily since October began. On certain days, closures ran as long as nine hours. The interruptions trace back to a rule run by Russia's aviation authority, Rosaviatsiya, known as the "carpet" protocol. It closes airspace over a region or around an airport immediately if an aircraft violates Russian airspace, weapons are used, or unidentified objects appear in the sky, after which strict limits apply to all air traffic.

Ukraine's president framed the campaign as deliberate policy. Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in early September that Ukraine would seek to cut off airspace around Moscow and other Russian destinations, telling airlines, insurers and travelers that "Russian airspace will become completely unsafe." Ukraine sent a related warning to the International Civil Aviation Organization the next day. Ukraine's own airspace has been closed since Russia's full-scale invasion in February 2022.

Oleksandr Laneckij, chief executive of the consultancy Friendly Avia Support, told DW that "essentially, every drone poses a military threat." He compared the disruption to Yemen's Houthis, who affected Saudi airspace, and said Ukraine's military capabilities exceed theirs. Military analyst Jan Matvejev said triggering the protocol requires only simple drones without warheads or long range, and that Ukraine's arms industry can produce hundreds of combat-ready long-range drones a day. He said Russia's air defenses are not fully effective against the drones: "If it were possible to shoot them down, they would have done so by now."

Both experts pointed to risks for civilian flights. Laneckij said Russia could lower the threshold for declaring the carpet protocol, raising the danger of incidents like the 2024 Christmas day crash of an Azerbaijan Airlines flight. Investigators say that aircraft was hit by a Russian air-defense missile fired to counter drones, killing 38 people. Matvejev said Russia's air-defense protocol has changed little since then and that drones need no explosives to cause harm, because a collision with an airplane can be serious. A drone flown from Ukraine to Moscow must be large, he said, "weighting dozens of kilograms." Matvejev also said Ukraine's arms industry can produce hundreds of combat-ready long-range drones a day, and that triggering the protocol requires only simple drones without warheads or long range.

Airports outside Moscow have been affected too. Ukrainian forces struck the Pskov airport in the summer of 2023, and drone debris fell on Sochi airport earlier this month. Russia has struck Ukrainian airports; in September Zelenskyy said Kyiv's airport and Boryspil, near the capital, were hit. Laneckij said whether foreign airlines keep flying to Russia depends on the military threat, demand and insurance costs, and that "whether they stay or not depends on the price they have to pay for the danger faced." Ukraine's drone campaign has run for months and intensified in October.