Ukrainian Drones Disrupt Moscow and St. Petersburg Airports, Delaying or Cancelling Nearly 200 Flights
Overnight into October 16, Russia's aviation authority restricted flights at Moscow's four airports, while St. Petersburg's Pulkovo was closed until 9 a.m. Nearly 200 flights were delayed or canceled.
Rosaviatsiya, Russia's federal air transport agency, restricted arrivals and departures at four Moscow airports — Sheremetyevo, Vnukovo, Domodedovo and Zhukovsky — from the evening of October 15. The restrictions stayed in place until early on October 16, as Ukrainian drones headed toward the Russian capital during Russia's war against Ukraine.
According to the Moskva news agency, almost 160 flights at Moscow's airports were delayed or canceled. Vnukovo and Sheremetyevo were hit hardest, with 66 and 79 flights respectively. Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said air defense units had shot down 94 Ukrainian drones flying toward the city since the evening.
Pulkovo Airport in St. Petersburg was also closed, with restrictions lasting until 9 a.m. The local outlet Fontanka reported that 37 departing and nine arriving flights were canceled or delayed. Leningrad region Governor Alexander Drozdenko said four drones were downed over the region.
A campaign against airports
Simon Shuster, a journalist at the U.S. magazine The Atlantic, wrote a day earlier, citing sources, that Ukraine's campaign to paralyze Russian airports is "just getting started." He said Ukraine has used long-range drones in recent weeks to make the airspace around Russian airports harder to use. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has not yet approved the original plan, which called for much more aggressive tactics, according to Shuster.
On September 1, Zelensky said Russian skies were "becoming unsafe" and that drones would appear there in a way that Russia would have to reckon with.
Moscow's airports have suspended operations more and more often in October. The independent Russian investigative outlet Agentstvo calculated that the four airports were closed for a combined 101 hours in the first 14 days of October, compared with 46 hours for all of September.
