Planes grounded at Moscow's Sheremetyevo airport. Photo / Unsplash, Slon V Kashe
Planes grounded at Moscow's Sheremetyevo airport. Photo / Unsplash, Slon V Kashe
The world is cracking down hard on Russia because of its bloody invasion of Ukraine - and the impact isn't just happening on the ground.
Russia's flagship airline will ground most of its fleet as the world bans its planes from their airspace as punishment for the invasion on Ukraine.
Aeroflot said late Sunday night, local time, it was suspending flights to Europe after the European Union closed its airspace to all Russian aircraft.
The announcement came after the EU said Sunday it would close its airspace to Russian carriers, adding to a litany of sanctions imposed on Russia over its attack on Ukraine.
"Aeroflot is suspending flights of the European route network from February 28, 2022 until further notice," the company said on its website.
The EU's airspace ban prohibits flights into or over the EU by all Russian planes, including private jets.
Travel between Russia and the West has been severely hampered by no-fly zones and travel bans. Photo / Alexander Nrjwolf, Unsplash
The measure consolidated what was already de facto largely in place, with many of the EU's 27 nations having individually announced airspace closures to Russian flights.
In response, Russia has barred flights from a number of countries such as Britain, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Slovenia, Bulgaria, Poland and the Czech Republic.
Other nations outside of Europe have also taken action against Aeroflot with Flight Radar, a flight tracking system, showing a number of the airline's planes making sharp returns back to Russia.
The United States has asked its citizens in Russia to "consider" leaving immediately, as commercial airlines continued to cancel flights in the country.
"An increasing number of airlines are cancelling flights into and out of Russia, and numerous countries have closed their airspace to Russian airlines," the US embassy in Moscow said in a statement.
It called on its citizens to "consider departing Russia immediately via commercial options still available."
But the US embassy said that Washington was not changing its travel advisory to Russia.
It implemented a Level 4 "Do Not Travel" warning against Russia in January, as tensions over Ukraine grew.
Canada has also closed its airspace to all Russian carriers in protest of the Russian invasion.
"We will hold Russia accountable for its unprovoked attacks against Ukraine," Transport Minister Omar Alghabra said on Sunday.
The closure, effective immediately, aligns Canada with the vast majority of European countries.
Aeroflot has been sanctioned over Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Photo / Slon V Kashe, Unsplash
While there had been no direct flights between Canadian and Russian airports, the decision by the world's second-largest country - Russia is the largest - could seriously complicate flights by Russian carrier Aeroflot to or from the US, as well as to other countries to the south.
Any flight owned, chartered by or used by Russian interests - including private flights - is now banned from Canadian skies, transport ministry spokeswoman Valerie Glazer told AFP in an email.
Britain barred Aeroflot flights on Thursday, the first to do so.
No flights from Russia appeared Sunday to be arriving at major US airports in Washington, Baltimore, New York, Los Angeles and Chicago.
Delta Airlines on Friday also suspended a code-sharing arrangement with Aeroflot.
