Vladimir Putin has closed Moscow airspace to all private planes and helicopters as fears of an assassination attempt mount.
The world slated for closed airspace – as much as an altitude of 16,700ft -is roughly 4 times the dimensions of the UK.
It stretches over a swathe of central Russia from the border with Belarus within the west, north to the St. Petersburg flight zone, east towards the Urals, and joins an already restricted area within the south near the war zone where flights have been banned for 4 years.
It also comes amid increasing fears of the power of long-range Ukrainian unmanned planes to strike Moscow.
Notices to Airmen are expected soon, per orders from Putin’s Transport Ministry.
‘Security services are considering options for unauthorised flights of small aircraft near Moscow and Vladimir Putin’s presence — to eliminate the danger of assassination attempts,’ one insider said.
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Air defences around Moscow and the elite housing belt near Putin’s Novo-Ogaryovo palace to the west of the capital are being updated.
It would allow the military to treat low-level, non-scheduled aircraft as suspicious without continuously checking private flight plans.
All flight schools and pilot training might be banned, however the private jets of favoured oligarchs are expected to proceed to fly.
Putin moved to shut a big swathe of Russian airspace ahead of the continuation of air strikes on Kyiv.
The flight ban could also be a safety measure ahead of any expected Ukrainian reprisals.
Targets might be Volodymyr Zelensky’s decision-making centres and military-industrial facilities, including those allegedly linked to Nato states.
Putin is facing increasing threats to his power. An anti-Putin underground movement has vowed to overthrow him by force.
The group, often called Black Spark, claims it’s constructing a clandestine anti-regime network inside Russia made up of ‘middle-class’ professionals, business figures, anti-war activists and fighters with combat experience.
The person behind the group has been revealed as Igor Volobuev, a Kremlin-linked banking vice-president who defected to Ukraine after Putin’s invasion and took up arms against Russia.
Black Spark’s manifesto openly calls for armed resistance against the Russian state.
‘Putin’s terror killed our belief in dialogue. We realised that under a dictatorship, justice is forced to face with Molotov cocktails,’ the group said.
The movement denounces Russia’s invasion of Ukraine as ‘our shame and our crime’ and argues that simply removing Putin isn’t enough.
‘The empire itself — Russia’s biggest curse — must collapse,’ the manifesto states.
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