Ukraine Notifies ICAO That Russian Airspace Is Unsafe; Rosaviatsia Answers With a Counter-Notification
Kyiv, 2 September 2026
Key points
- Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said on 2 September that Ukraine "has officially notified ICAO that the Russian airspace is not safe for civilian aviation because of increased military activity", citing Article 51 of the UN Charter
- The underlying letter, sent by Infrastructure Minister Mykola Kalashnyk to ICAO Secretary General Juan Carlos Salazar Gómez and obtained by ZN.ua, goes further than Sybiha's post: it asks ICAO member states to ban civil flights in Russian airspace, citing the 2024 Azerbaijan Airlines aircraft hit by an S-300, two further aircraft hit by Russian air defence, and GPS interference logged by Ryanair, Wizz Air and Finnair
- ICAO does not close a state's airspace; whether member states act is a national and underwriter decision. ICAO's own 1 September statement warned generally of rising threats to civil aviation from long-range weapons, drones and navigation interference, without naming Russia
- Rosaviatsia issued a counter-notification the same day; on 3 September its head, Dmitry Yadrov, said at the Vladivostok forum that none of the 37 countries with air links to Russia has discontinued service, and that Ukraine's letter "must be considered by the ICAO Council" before any notification reaches member states
- Pegasus Airlines cancelled twelve Vnukovo-bound flights the night the warning circulated and resumed service the next day, citing technical reasons; of carriers still serving Moscow, those belonging to a NATO member are Turkish
Ukraine formally notified the International Civil Aviation Organization on 2 September that Russian airspace is unsafe for civil flights and asked member states to ban overflight — a request ICAO has no power to grant outright, and one Russia's civil-aviation regulator answered within the day with a counter-notification and, on 3 September, a public dismissal.
Sybiha's public framing — "We want to prevent unintended incidents… The war is returning home to Russia" — understated what Kalashnyk's letter to ICAO actually requested: a member-state ban on civil overflight of Russia, not merely a safety advisory. The distinction matters because ICAO's institutional authority stops well short of either. The organisation can issue guidance and consider a member's notification through its Council, but does not itself close airspace; that decision sits with national aviation authorities and, in practice, with the war-risk insurers who price the routes. ICAO's 1 September statement — issued before Kalashnyk's letter was reported — spoke generally of "rising threats to civil aviation worldwide" from long-range weapons, drones and navigation interference, and did not name Russia.
Rosaviatsia's response arrived on the same axis of legalism. Yadrov did not dispute the underlying safety claims so much as the procedure, saying Ukraine's letter "must be considered by the ICAO Council" before it can generate any notification to member states, and that carriers from all 37 countries with air links to Russia continue flying. The one concrete disruption cited, Pegasus's twelve cancelled Vnukovo flights, was reversed within a day and attributed by the airline to technical causes rather than the warning.
The claim outran the evidence by a wide margin on the day it was made, and the gap has not closed since. Großwald's Signal No. 137 logged Zelenskyy's "first airlines" line as unnamed at the time; three days on, Yadrov's zero-withdrawal count from Vladivostok stands unrebutted, and the ICAO Council has not taken up Kalashnyk's letter. What Kyiv has achieved is procedural — a filing that keeps the safety record on the institutional register — not yet the operational effect the letter asked for.
