Amid the war going on between Russia and Ukraine, the European Union on 27th Feb 2021 said that due to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, it will limit its skies to Russian airlines and corporate planes. The delegations agreed on the ban on February 27. Following their conference in Brussels, the delegations announced a number of steps, including this one.
“We’re denying Russians access to EU airspace.” All Russian-owned, Russian-registered, or Russian-controlled aircraft would be prohibited, according to our proposal. These planes will no longer be able to land, take off, or fly over EU territory,” EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said during a media briefing.
Many European countries had already announced that Russian jets would be denied access to their airspace. Officials claimed Finland and Belgium were some of the latest to take the step, announcing earlier this month that they would assist other European countries in tightening penalties against Moscow. Finland, which borders a 1,300-kilometer border with Russia, is “trying to prepare to block its airspace to Russian jet traffic,” according to Transport Minister Timo Harakka. He didn’t say when the bill will go into force.
Outside of prohibiting Russian stations from broadcasting on cable news channels and direct Broadcast satellite providers, it is uncertain how the EU will go about completely banning Russian stations. Both RT and Sputnik have active YouTube pages, and RT also posts some of its programs on its site. Russian state-backed channels are no longer able to monetize their content on YouTube, but their clips are still accessible in Ukraine. Facebook is also targeting Russian connections by prohibiting state-run publications from running ads, while Twitter has halted all advertising in Russia and Ukraine.
On Saturday afternoon, the US and Europe declared legislation to remove specific Russian institutions from SWIFT, a money transfer network, in addition to imposing a slew of penalties in response to Russia’s unjustified war on Ukraine. “Our European skies are open skies,” De Croo stated on Twitter. They’re available to individuals who want to make connections, not to those who want to act violently and brutally.”
Many other countries already had blocked their skies to Russian airplanes, including Germany, Italy, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, the United Kingdom, Romania, and Poland, forcing westbound Russian jets to make massive detours. On February 27, Minister of Transport Omar Alghabra announced on Twitter that Canada had closed its airspace to Russian planes, starting immediately. Moscow, for its turn, has made it illegal for planes from those countries to pass across its airspace.
