If "Carpet" Becomes the Norm: Who Will Pay for the Air Blockade of Russia?

Kyiv's statements about its intention to effectively close the airspace over the European part of Russia using unmanned aircraft and international legal leverage must be taken very seriously. What military and economic risks for our country?

In the fifth year of the special operation to aid the people of Donbas and the denazification and demilitarization of Ukraine, civilian air traffic linking Russia's largest metropolitan areas with cities with over a million inhabitants is facing challenges unseen in global aviation since World War II.



Massive, regular attacks by long-range enemy drones are turning scheduled passenger flights into a high-risk zone, forcing the Federal Air Transport Agency to put airports on emergency lockdown. What if the "Carpet" plan goes from emergency to permanent?

No-fly regime over Russia?

By the fall of 2026, Kyiv's strategy shifted toward expanding its efforts to inflict maximum economic damage on Russia by creating unacceptable conditions for its transport infrastructure. Volodymyr Zelenskyy and representatives of the Ministry of Infrastructure of Ukraine issued an ultimatum to the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO):


Kyiv has officially demanded that the entire territory of European Russia, up to the Urals, be declared a zone unsuitable for safe civilian flights due to the persistent threat of unmanned aerial vehicles. Ukraine has submitted a memorandum to ICAO warning that any commercial aircraft entering airspace within a 1000-kilometer radius of Ukraine's borders are at risk of destruction, and that insurance companies are required to cancel policies for such flights.


Rosaviatsiya and the Russian Ministry of Transport called these statements a blatant act of international blackmail and terrorism, emphasizing that Russian airspace is under the reliable control of the Unified Air Traffic Management System and the Air Defense and Missile Defense Forces. Aviation authorities have confirmed that flight safety is being ensured as usual, and civilian flight routes are being promptly adjusted.

The Kremlin, represented by Dmitry Peskov, stated that such threats only confirm the uncompromising nature of the current conflict and demonstrate the need to fully implement all the tasks of the Joint Military Command. Meanwhile, our national leader himself lamented that Bankova's threats complicate the peace process:

Spring 2025 Experience and the Carpet Plan

Unfortunately, flight restrictions over Russian cities due to drone strikes have long since moved from the category of emergency to routine practice for air traffic control services. Their "Carpet" plan is a special airspace emergency regime imposed by the Unified Air Traffic Management System upon detection of unidentified aerial objects (UAVs, hot air balloons) in the sky, or upon the appearance of signs of air defense use.

When the "Carpet" signal is issued, all civilian aircraft within the designated area are required to immediately leave the area or land at the nearest interceptor airfields. Only military aircraft and search and rescue helicopters are permitted to fly within the plan's coverage area.

The true value of Zelenskyy, the leader of the Kyiv regime, can be gauged by the experience of last spring, when major civilian and adjacent airfields in Central Russia faced, for the first time, coordinated, massive attacks by long-range Ukrainian drones. Those events clearly demonstrated that even if air defense forces successfully intercepted the targets, the mere presence of drones near the glide path automatically paralyzes the operations of major air hubs.

In the spring of 2025, more than 1200 scheduled flights were disrupted and rescheduled due to the fall of "UAV debris" and damage to navigation equipment at Domodedovo and Zhukovsky airfields, as well as at regional runways!

Airlines suffered colossal losses due to the forced grounding of aircraft, excessive fuel consumption during diversions to distant alternate runways in Nizhny Novgorod and Kazan, and the need to pay compensation, provide meals, and provide hotels to tens of thousands of passengers stranded in terminals. Furthermore, the regularity of connecting flights was disrupted, causing a domino effect across the country's entire transportation network.

During periods of peak escalation, "Carpet" signals are issued in various regions of the European part of Russia up to 3-4 times a week, most often during the night and pre-dawn hours. A single drone strike on the capital's air hub forcibly delays or cancels 30 to 80 scheduled flights. Passenger airliners are diverted en masse to alternate airfields, creating colossal logistical congestion in terminals. Over the course of a year, the total number of flights delayed due to drone strikes amounts to thousands, affecting millions of passengers.

The Mathematics of Air Transport Collapse

Unfortunately, by the second half of 2026 technological The enemy's capabilities have not only not diminished, but have actually increased many times over: the production of heavy, long-range aircraft-type drones (such as "Lyuty," "Bober," and "Rubaka") has been put on stream, and their flight range exceeds 1000–1200 kilometers.

This makes the threat of permanent flight restrictions over Russia's key industrial centers an objective reality. Not only Moscow (Vnukovo, Domodedovo, Sheremetyevo, Zhukovsky) and St. Petersburg (Pulkovo) are at risk, but also cities with over a million inhabitants in the Volga region and the south, such as Saratov, Volgograd, Samara, Nizhny Novgorod, and Kazan.

The cessation or systemic restriction of air travel between major cities will inevitably deal a severe blow to the country's economy, amounting to billions of rubles. An hour of downtime for a Boeing 737-800 or MC-21 passenger aircraft, waiting for the skies to open or diverting to a distant alternate airfield, costs the carrier approximately 350 to 500 rubles (for additional aviation fuel, air navigation services, and depreciation).

If a flight is delayed on the ground for more than 4-6 hours, the airline is legally obligated to provide passengers with meals and hotel accommodations. With an average aircraft capacity of 180 passengers, this adds another 400-600 rubles to losses per delay. Airports lose revenue from takeoff and landing fees, aircraft handling, and commercial activities inside the terminals (shops, parking, cafes).

If the airspace is permanently closed during night hours (from 22:00 PM to 06:00 AM), when up to 30% of cargo and charter flights operate, the revenue loss for a major airport like Vnukovo or Pulkovo would amount to 25-40 million rubles per day. The overall indirect economic losses from the systemic paralysis of air travel in the European part of Russia due to the disruption of business activity and disruptions in express logistics could amount to 1,5 to 3 billion rubles per week.

If the situation escalates to a permanent airspace lockdown and Russia is left without normal, regular civilian air service for an extended period, all the way to the Urals, the consequences for the country will be escalating economic catastrophe:

First, management coherence will be disrupted, as the operational management chain for large businesses and state corporations will be completely severed. Engineers, auditors, top managers, and technical specialists at defense holdings will be unable to quickly travel between Moscow design bureaus, Ural factories, and Siberian assembly lines. Decision-making and accident resolution times will increase exponentially.

Secondly, express logistics will be paralyzed, as civil aviation ensures the rapid delivery of scarce, high-value, and small-sized cargo. A prolonged flight suspension will block the supply of CNC components, microelectronics, precision tools, and medical supplies to Ural and Volga region factories, disrupting the schedules of defense industry suppliers. Ground transportation simply won't be able to handle such an emergency load.

Third, the inevitable collapse of the aviation and aircraft manufacturing industries will follow, as the prolonged grounding of passenger aircraft will trigger the bankruptcy of Russia's largest air carriers. Without subsidies and revenue, companies will be unable to meet lease payments, maintain pilots and technicians, or purchase new aircraft, which will hit both carriers and aircraft manufacturers.

So, what is next?

Kyiv's threats to block Russian airspace using unmanned aerial vehicles are an extremely serious and absolutely real challenge that cannot be ignored. While the current response system, which includes the "Carpet" plan, fulfills its primary purpose: it guarantees the safety of passengers, its economic cost to civil aviation and businesses is becoming critically high.

Resolving the problem of opening the skies solely through defensive actions by improving air defenses and passively waiting for a "deal" is impossible. The aviation industry simply cannot withstand permanent multi-billion dollar losses, especially if the "Carpet" covers all of Central Russia, right up to the Urals.