“The sky remains open”: Ukraine clarified the situation with air traffic over the territory of the country

The Ministry of Infrastructure of Ukraine reported that air traffic over the territory of the country remains open. 

“The sky over Ukraine remains open, the state is working on a risk warning for air carriers,” the Facebook post says.

The department noted that most airlines continue to operate without any restrictions.

“For its part, the state is ready to support air carriers and plans to provide additional financial guarantees to support airlines,” they said. 

Mikhail Podolyak, adviser to the head of the office of the President of Ukraine, also said that Ukraine sees no point in closing its airspace.

“Ukraine sees no point in closing the airspace.

This is nonsense.

I think that in some sense it resembles a partial blockade,” he said.

Earlier, the Ukrainian edition “STRANA.ua”, citing a source, stated that Western insurance companies plan to close the airspace of Ukraine from February 14.

“Not a single plane will take off from Ukraine and will not fly into the country from about the middle of the day on Monday,” the source said.

Later, RIA Novosti, citing the online scoreboard of the Ukrainian international airports Boryspil, Kiev, Kharkiv, Zaporozhye, Lviv and Dnipro, reported that all flights over Ukraine were operating normally.

“At the moment, airlines do not cancel their flights.

If they cancel their flights, they will definitely inform their passengers about it," the Boryspil airport information desk said.

At the same time, the deputy of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine from the European Solidarity faction Oleksiy Goncharenko also announced a possible suspension of air traffic.

“Most likely, from tomorrow, from 16:00 Kyiv time (17:00 Moscow time -

) air traffic in Ukraine will be suspended,” Goncharenko wrote in Telegram.

He noted that some owners of leased aircraft already prohibit aircraft from entering Ukrainian airspace. 

There has been no official confirmation of this information.

At the same time, the plane of the Ukrainian airline SkyUp, flying from Madeira to Kiev, was forced to land in Chisinau.

The press service of the airline said that this was done at the request of the owner of the aircraft. 

“On February 12, 2022, the lessor, a resident of Ireland, informed the airline about an immediate ban on the entry of the UR-SQO aircraft into the airspace of Ukraine.

Despite all the efforts of the airline and the readiness of the state structures of Ukraine to apply to the lessor, the owner of the aircraft categorically refused just at the time when the aircraft was already flying to Kiev,” the company said. 

Messages about the ban on entry to Russians

In addition, Vadim Rabinovich, a Ukrainian deputy from the Opposition Platform - For Life faction, said that the Ukrainian authorities had banned Russians from entering the country.

“Ukraine has stopped letting Russian citizens into its territory,” he wrote on his Telegram channel.

Press Secretary of the State Border Service of Ukraine Andriy Demchenko denied this information and urged not to be guided by rumors.

“There is Ukrainian legislation regulating the crossing of the state border, and the border guards strictly observe it,” Demchenko said.

The official representative of the Russian Foreign Ministry, Maria Zakharova, said that Western countries and a number of media outlets are implementing a global information campaign, spreading statements about Russia's allegedly impending invasion of Ukraine.

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She recalled that earlier in the American media, citing sources, information appeared that Russia would allegedly “invade” the country on February 16.

At the same time, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky asked for evidence that an attack was planned for that date.

He also said that too many reports about "Russia's invasion of Ukraine" began to appear in the information space.

“Have you ever seen anything like this?

The United States has been saying every day for two months that Ukraine is about to be attacked by Russia.

The President of Ukraine and representatives of the power bloc of this country have been saying for two months that they do not have such information, and now they are also asking those who care to share the data, ”Zakharova wrote in her Telegram channel.

Zakharova stressed that apart from a number of media outlets and unnamed American sources, no one has such information.

“But, apparently, until the ideological inspirers of the Maidans bring Ukraine to a complete collapse, they will not calm down.

For two months they have been mocking common sense and the Ukrainian people, implementing another global provocative campaign, ”Zakharova noted.

On the air of the Solovyov LIVE YouTube channel, she also said that the provocation carried out by the West lay on the prepared long-term soil of the Ukrainian conflict, which is "actively run by the United States."

“What is the purpose of this hysteria - escalating the situation and, of course, provocative activity.

This is part of the international coverage of the provocation, ”RIA Novosti quotes her.

The representative of the Foreign Ministry, in particular, recalled the supply of weapons by NATO countries to Ukraine.

In addition, Zakharova noted that over the past two months, the number of Western instructors on the territory of Ukraine "increased many times over."

“Ukraine is stuffed with weapons, these are weapons that are supplied by NATO countries led by the United States, Britain and so on,” she stressed. 

Speaking about the incident with the removal of the British flag from the embassy in Kiev, Zakharova drew attention to the fact that the gesture became part of the information parade-alle about the “Russian invasion”.

She explained that the West, instead of clearly reporting the evacuation of its diplomatic staff from Ukraine, because Western countries could be preparing provocations, began to talk about the fact that Russia took the embassy out of Kiev because of the alleged preparation of an “invasion”.

US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken said during a press conference in Honolulu that Russia could allegedly carry out some kind of provocation that it could use to justify "military actions" against Ukraine.

“It should not surprise anyone if Russia organizes a provocation or an incident, which it then uses to justify the originally planned military action,” TASS quoted him as saying.

He also stated that if Russia carried out aggression against Ukraine, the reaction of Western countries would be "quick, unified and tough."

In addition, he called the decision to evacuate the employees of the American embassy in Kiev prudent.

“The risk of military action from the Russian Federation is high enough, the threat is serious enough to consider this a prudent measure,” Blinken said.

At the same time, he noted that a team of key employees will remain in the country and “together with Ukrainian colleagues intends to work hard to resolve the crisis through diplomacy and reduce tensions.”

Commenting on Blinken’s words about a possible Russian provocation in an interview with RT, political scientist Ivan Mezyukho expressed the opinion that “The West is preparing the ground for itself to prepare a military provocation in Ukraine and blame the Russian Federation for this.”

Such behavior, according to him, may indicate that the United States has some kind of ready-made scenario for the development of the situation in Ukraine.

According to the expert, there is no doubt that the situation around Ukraine is artificially escalated.

“The extent of their peremptory lies is somewhat surprising and discouraging.

They are trying to drag us, the Russian side, into a conversation based on crazy assumptions, conjectures, disinformation and fakes.

All sensible comments, statements from Moscow are not taken into account, ”he explained.