Ukraine: Russian Air Routes Revealed As Flights Avoid EU Airspace

Ukraine is now facing its fifth day of Russian President Vladimir Putin's 'special military operation'. Talks between negotiators from Moscow and Kyiv have begun in Belarus, but expectations aren't high as casualties continue to rise amid shelling and other conflict; the Ukrainian Armed Forces have claimed approximately 5,300 Russian soldiers have been killed.

Bar a small handful of countries either supporting Russia or refusing to outright condemn (Syria, China and the Taliban in Afghanistan), the response has been largely deafening: countries across the world are opposed to Putin's invasion, imposing historic sanctions and banning planes from their airspace.

'First, we are shutting down the EU airspace for Russian-owned, Russian registered or Russian-controlled aircraft. They won't be able to land in, take off or overfly the territory of the EU, including the private jets of oligarchs,' she said, as per Sky News.

In a screenshot from FlightRadar24, shared by BBC News, you can see the route a Russian-owned aircraft has been forced to take; in lieu of usual passage over Lithuania and Latvia, the plane had to fly around the countries, across the Baltic Sea, before getting to Russia.

Prior to von der Leyen's statement, several European countries had already started shutting off their airspace to Russia, including the UK, Poland, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Romania, Sweden, Finland, Denmark, Iceland and Germany.

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