The move comes after the aviation agency said there was a high risk of confiscation of planes leased from abroad as part of Western sanctions.
Aeroflot, Russia’s flag carrier, says it is suspending all international flights from March 8, with the exception of neighboring Belarus, as Moscow faces a wide range of Western sanctions over its invasion of Ukraine.
The move on Saturday came after the Federal Air Transport Agency advised all Russian airlines operating aircraft leased abroad to stop both passenger and cargo flights abroad, citing a high risk of leased aircraft being confiscated as part of Western sanctions banning aircraft leases. planes to Russia.
The recommendation of the Federal Air Transport Agency does not apply to Russian airlines using Russian aircraft or foreign aircraft that are not threatened with arrest. It also does not apply to foreign airlines from countries that have not imposed sanctions against Russia and have not closed their airspace to Russian aircraft.
According to industry publication Aviation Week, more than half of commercial aircraft in Russia are leased.
In a statement by Aeroflot about the “temporary suspension of all international flights from March 8,” new “circumstances hindering the operation of flights” were named. It notes that all domestic routes will remain unchanged, as well as flights to Belarus, whose leader Alexander Lukashenko is a close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Russia’s largest state-owned airline also said it would cancel return tickets for passengers due to depart Russia after March 6 and return after March 8. Passengers with one-way tickets will be allowed to fly until March 8.
The Federal Air Transport Agency also recommended that Russians seeking to return to their homeland from foreign countries organize transit flights through countries that have not joined the sanctions, such as Azerbaijan, Armenia, Kazakhstan, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Turkey and Serbia.
Earlier this week, another Russian carrier, S7, announced it was suspending all of its international flights due to sanctions imposed on Russia over the country’s February 24 invasion of Ukraine.
Budget airline Pobeda, a subsidiary of Aeroflot, also said it was halting international flights from March 8.
The aviation sector was among the first to suffer the economic consequences of the war.
The Russian carrier Aeroflot was banned from flying to the airspace of the entire EU, the UK and Canada, forcing it to suspend flights to these destinations.
In response, Russia banned airlines from the same countries from flying over its territory.
Putin, who on Saturday visited an Aeroflot training center near the capital, Moscow, says his goals in Ukraine are to protect the Russian-speaking population by “demilitarizing and denazifying” the country so that it becomes neutral.
Ukraine and Western countries have dismissed this as an unreasonable excuse for an invasion and have imposed tough sanctions aimed at isolating Moscow.
“These sanctions that are being introduced are akin to a declaration of war, but, thank God, it didn’t come to that,” Putin told Aeroflot employees.