More European countries ban Russian flights from their airspace

A growing number of countries in Europe announced Sunday Feb. 27 that they were closing their airspace to Russian planes in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Iceland, Italy, the Netherlands and Spain joined at least a dozen European countries that had made similar announcements.

“There is no room in Dutch airspace for a regime that applies unnecessary and brutal violence,” the infrastructure minister for the Netherlands, Mark Harbers, said on Twitter.

Denmark’s minister of foreign affairs, Jeppe Kofod, said he would push for Russian aircraft to be banned from the entirety of the European Union’s airspace at a meeting of the bloc’s ministers of foreign affairs Sunday.

Low-cost, Hungary-based airline Wizz Air also said Sunday that it would cancel its flights to Russia for at least a week. The airline said that, because of the sanctions imposed on Russia by the European Union and the United States, it would not be able to access spare parts for its planes in Russia.

Britain has banned all flights by Russia’s flagship carrier, Aeroflot, from its airspace, and German airline Lufthansa said Saturday that it would not use Russian airspace for the next week.

Germany banned Russian aircraft, with the exception of humanitarian flights, from its airspace starting Sunday for the next three months.

In response to the measures, the Russian government has banned flights from several European countries, and S7, Russia’s second-largest airline, suspended its flights to Europe.