Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky warned Tuesday that his country’s drones would make Russia’s airspace “completely unsafe” for the duration of the war, drawing accusations of “state terrorism” from Russian leader Vladimir Putin.
“We in Ukraine do not want innocent lives to be lost. “Ukraine does not threaten civilian aviation as such — not a single civilian aircraft. “The sky over Russia is currently for drones… as long as the war continues.
“Today, we want to warn every airline that uses Russian airspace, every insurer and everyone who still uses Russia’s key airports: Russian airspace is becoming completely unsafe,” Zelensky said in his nightly address. There will simply be drones in Russia’s skies on a scale that has to be taken into account,” he said. “Drone-infested skies are no place for civilian aviation,” Zelensky said. “They are asking us to resume negotiations… but you don’t negotiate with terrorists,” Putin said in a televised news conference. That is why we are warning our partners: the safe days in Russia’s skies are over,” Zelensky said. Zelensky said in his nightly address that Ukraine would clear its drones from Russian skies when its partners requested it, “for the sake of diplomacy, for the sake of negotiations… for specific periods of time and in specific destinations”.
