“Great dangers in the skies of Russia.” The European Aviation Authority explains

The European Aviation Safety Agency warned of the great dangers faced by commercial aircraft flying in Russian airspace due to a lack of coordination with the army, which was clearly demonstrated in the Azerbaijani plane crash a short time ago.
In a “security bulletin on conflict zones,” the agency renewed its recommendation to airlines not to fly west of Russian airspace, which Moscow essentially prevents companies operating in the European Union from using, but which is still passable to Chinese, Turkish, and Gulf airlines in particular.

The atmosphere of Russia

The agency added that the area in question is located “to the west of the 60th meridian east at all altitudes and all flight levels.”
Independent of the measures taken by Russia, the agency recommends avoiding flights over part of this area since the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
In the new bulletin, she stressed that the conflict creates risks of “inadvertently targeting civilian aircraft… due to a potential lack of coordination between civilian and military authorities” when operating air defenses.

Accidents in airspace

The agency pointed to “accidents in airspace that the Russian Federation did not close during attacks,” noting that “this creates great risks for overflight operations, as the accident involving Azerbaijan Airlines Flight 8243 showed.”
38 people were killed in the plane crash during a flight between Baku and Grozny, the capital of the Russian Republic of Chechnya, on December 25.
The Russian Federal Aviation Agency denounced what it considered a “ridiculous” European Union recommendation.

Sanctions on Russia

The Russian agency said in a statement on Friday that “this recommendation seems ridiculous in the context of the current sanctions” targeting the Russian air sector, adding that this “is nothing more than a continuation of the policy of sanctions practiced by Western countries against the Russian civil aviation industry.”
The European agency said that “no European airline currently operates flights to Russia, nor uses its airspace” after Moscow closed it in response to Western sanctions imposed on it since the start of its invasion of Ukraine.
But she stated that “several airlines from other countries continue to do so despite the risks associated with the war.”