Moscow airports shut over Ukrainian drone threat

MOSCOW - Three out of four of Moscow’s airports shut to air traffic on Jan 4 after Ukraine launched dozens of drones at the Russian capital, the authorities said.

The attacks led to multiple flight delays, including at Moscow’s second-busiest airport of Vnukovo, Russian media reported.

Ukraine, which has itself endured waves of Russian drone strikes throughout the nearly four-year war, did not immediately comment.

A spokesman for Russian aviation regulator Rosaviatsia announced the closures between 1pm and 2pm GMT (9pm to 10pm Singapore time).

“The restrictions are necessary to ensure flight safety,” Mr Artem Korenyako said on Telegram.

Each of the airports – Vnukovo, Domodedovo and Zhukovsky – partially re-opened less than an hour later, he said in later posts.

Russian air defences downed at least 27 drones headed towards the capital on Jan 4, Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin announced in a series of Telegram posts.

Russia, which launched a full-scale military assault on its neighbour in 2022, has repeatedly closed its airspace in response to the Ukrainian drone strikes.

The governor of the Russian region of Belgorod, on the border with Ukraine, said a Ukrainian drone strike earlier on Jan 4 on a car carrying a family killed one person and wounded two others, including a four-year-old. AFP