Ukrainian Drones Disrupt Half of Russia’s Commercial Flights

This is not a good time to fly around Europe. In the West this week, dozens of emailed bomb threats caused airlines to ground passenger jets. In the East, Ukrainian President Zelensky follows through on a largely overlooked Sept. 1 threat to make Russian airspace “completely unsafe.”Now, October figures are out: Ukrainian drone activity delayed 30,700 Russian flights and forced the cancellation of 3,000 more. That means that Ukrainian drones buzzing around Russian airports last month disrupted almost half of Russia’s 69,200 scheduled civilian flights.Videos of Moscow’s airport terminals show passengers milling about or trying to catnap on polished granite floors. This airport chaos undermines a cherished freedom of post-Communist Russia — the freedom to travel. Last year, 109 million airplane tickets were sold in a nation of 144 million people. “If the Moscow aviation hub were paralyzed for a week, the entire country would absolutely feel it,” Alexander Lanetsky, CEO of Friendly Avia Support, an aircraft brokerage in Lithuania, told Radio Free Europe. “The operation of airports, and indeed the entire aviation sector in this region, would be paralyzed.”Fraying links in a continental nation of 11 time zones, 49 Russian airports suffered a total of 495 flight restrictions in October. This was 27 percent more than September. Earlier, Russia’s air traffic last summer was down 7 percent over the previous summer. Forbes Russia predicts disruptions will cost Russia’s airline industry $2 billion this year.So far, no passenger airplane has been hit in Russia. President Zelensky has asserted that his strategy is to force airports to close, without causing civilian casualties. Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha has formally warned the International Civil Aviation Organization: “Russian airspace is not safe for civilian aviation because of increased military activity.”Many safety experts predict that it is just a matter of time before there is an accident. President Putin rejects Mr. Zelensky’s threat as “a declaration of terrorism.” Russian Transport Minister Andrei Nikitin vowed in an interview with Interfax news agency: “We will not allow any significant disruption to civil aviation.”In Western Europe, last week’s rash of bomb threats also seem designed to disrupt travel, without bringing down passenger jets. European officials say bomb threats were made against a total of 25 flights yesterday and Thursday. With messaging apps providing anonymity, identities of perpetrators are not publicly known. On Monday, security officials meet in Brussels to discuss measures needed to deal with the bomb threats.“Today we are not in a position to say whether these events are all connected,” Italian Premier Giorgia Meloni said yesterday in Verona. “But they certainly tell us the same thing: that civilian infrastructure is under attack.”For Ukraine, disrupting Russian air traffic is a pressure point leading up to Tuesday’s White House-mediated Russia-Ukraine talks in Abu Dhabi. Creating another pressure point, Ukraine’s Defense Ministry claims to have cut Russia’s September refining volumes by 55 percent year over year. Of Russian 38 major refineries, the Ministry says that in September Ukrainian drones and missiles disabled 15 and cut output at 12 more. Over the last eight days, Ukraine hit seven Russian refineries. In a Fox interview last Sunday, President Zelensky offered to suspend strikes on Russian oil refineries for each month that the Trump Administration provides Patriot missile interceptors. President Trump complains that Ukraine’s attacks on Russian refineries pushed American diesel prices to a record level, $6.53 in September. Despite a heavy bombing campaign by Russia against Ukraine this fall, the Trump Administration says the US will only be able to supply Patriots in 2030. Last night, in a warm up to the Abu Dhabi talks, Russia fired 36 ballistic missiles at Kyiv, President Zelensky said this morning on X. Only four were shot downUkraine’s quiet campaign against Russian air travel is also payback to the Kremlin for shutting down all of Ukraine’s air service on February 24, 2022, the start of the all out war against Ukraine. Russia’s attack cut short a thriving air travel industry. In the 20 years leading up to the 2020 Covid pandemic, traffic at Ukraine’s largest international airport, Kyiv Boryspil, increased 10-fold, to 15 million passengers. Over the same period, traffic at Kyiv’s second international airport, Zhuliany, increased 25-fold, to 2.6 million. A booming destination for such discount European airlines as Ryanair and Wizz Air, Kyiv had direct flights to 140 foreign cities.However, since the Kremlin’s attack on Kyiv almost five years ago, foreigners visit Ukraine by ground, largely by train from Poland or Moldova. In September, it was rumored that White House envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner might fly into Kyiv for their first ever trip to Ukraine. On Sept.5, the day before their announced arrival, Russian missiles hit the city’s already mothballed airports. The two men traveled to Kyiv by train from Poland.“Clearly, these Russian strikes on the airports are a reaction to the discussions and preparations for the possibility of the U.S. side using an aircraft to travel to Ukraine and land at Kyiv Airport or Boryspil Airport,” Zelensky said on Telegram a few hours after Russia’s strikes. If, as feared, the Abu Dhabi talks do not lead to a ceasefire, President Zelensky could pull off the shelf a more aggressive plan. This would aim at further shutting down Russian civil air travel. As Ukrainian officials reportedly outlined last summer to Simon Shuster of The Atlantic, this plan would involve sending to Moscow’s airports clouds of AI-controlled small drones. Each wave would include up to 1,000 small drones. Targets would be control towers, aviation fuel tanks and, possibly empty passenger jets. The goal would be to cripple Russia’s biggest airports, without causing civilian casualties.The plan was refined during the first half of the year by computer programmers working under then-Defense Minister Mykhailo Fedorov. After President Zelensky fired Fedorov in July, planning was frozen. Mr. Zelensky reportedly feared that artificial intelligence technology was not accurate enough to avoid the kind of civilian loss of life that would sour Ukraine’s Western sponsors.As President Putin pursues a strategy to cut off heat, water and electricity to Kyiv this winter, it is not clear how long Mr. Zelensky will wait for AI to perfect its targeting. In advance, he warned: “Today, we want to warn every airline that uses Russian airspace, every insurer, everyone who still uses key Russian airports: The Russian sky is becoming completely dangerous.”

Ukrainian Drones Disrupt Half of Russia’s Commercial Flights

Ukrainian Drones Disrupt Half of Russia’s Commercial Flights

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