First airline cancels flights to Moscow amid Ukrainian threat to 'close' Russia's skies
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Air Tanzania has temporarily suspended flights between Dar es Salaam, the Tanzanian capital, and Moscow, citing "safety considerations," the airline said in a statement on Sept. 4.
"The decision follows a routine risk assessment of the operating environment along the route," the statement said. "Safety considerations always take precedence over commercial ones."
The suspension comes after Air Tanzania flight TC 422, traveling from Zanzibar to Moscow, was forced to divert to St. Petersburg on Sept. 3 instead of landing at Moscow's Vnukovo International Airport due to the closure of airspace around the capital.
Air Tanzania is the first carrier to suspend flights to the Russian capital after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky threatened that "Russian airspace will effectively be closing" in his nightly address on Sept. 1.
"Russian airspace is becoming completely unsafe," Zelensky said.
The president added that Ukraine would not target civilian aircraft, but that the presence of Ukrainian drones posed a significant threat to civilian air travel, which Russian authorities were refusing to acknowledge.
The tempo of Ukraine's drone campaign has increased in recent months. Russia's Defense Ministry claimed that the Russian military had "intercepted and destroyed" 490 Ukrainian drones overnight on Sept. 4, while a number of industrial and military targets, including the Sterlitamak Petrochemical Plant, reportedly came under drone attack.
