Zelensky closes Putin’s skies: Russians face days of delays in airport chaos as Ukraine drone missions disrupt airspace
Russians are suffering unprecedented airport chaos as Ukraine massively disrupts Moscow’s airspace with incessant drones.
Fury and frustration are growing as travellers face hours or even days of delays caused by Vladimir Putin refusing to halt his war.
The Kremlin dictator and his commander in chief were accused of ‘lies’ for claiming the ‘liberation’ of frontline settlements still held by Ukraine.
Footage shows angry passengers forced to sleep on floors at Moscow’s four airports, which have suffered more than 1,000 hours of closures this month.
Check-in staff have been reduced to tears as Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky starts to carry out his threat to close the skies around the Russian capital.
Sheremetyevo Airport was hit by more than 100 disruptions early today while Vnukovo Airport suffered 150 delays or cancellations.
Ukraine flew dozens of drones into Moscow’s airspace to deliberately wreak havoc.
Mayor of Moscow Sergei Sobyanin said: ‘Seventy-five drones heading towards Moscow have been destroyed.
A woman claims online she has been left waiting for 30 hours at a Moscow airport for her flight to Tyumen in Siberia
A huge crowd of passengers are left stranded at an airport in Moscow after Ukrainian drone attacks caused flights to be delayed for hours
A departures board at a Russian airport show most flights have been cancelled
‘Emergency services specialists are working at the crash sites.’
One passenger said sarcastically: ‘We have to endure it. Before the [war], the situation was much worse.’
Another wrote: ‘**** Putin.’
A woman, 34, complained: ‘My holiday is completely ruined. The blame for this lies in the Kremlin.’
This came as Donald Trump again took action seen as helping rather than harming Mr Putin’s war effort.
He signed an executive order to block at least for now ‘hellish sanctions’ passed by Congress against Russia over the conflict.
He acted because the 500 per cent tariffs to be imposed on Russian energy resources could complicate his plans to increase supplies of Mr Putin’s diesel to the global market.
Mr Trump hopes to lower fuel prices in the United States ahead of the American midterm elections on November 3.
Ukraine strikes Russia’s largest gas condensate processing plant in Surgut, 2,600km (1,615 miles) from the border, targeting Gazprom facility processing up to 12million tonnes a year
Smoke rose from the Chernomyrdin Surgut Condensate Stabilisation Plant owned by Gazprom in remote Khanty-Mansi region
Sheremetyevo Airport was hit by more than 100 disruptions early today while Vnukovo Airport suffered 150 delays or cancellations
Kirill Dmitriev, envoy for Russian President Vladimir Putin, on Monday described Mr Trump’s decision to waive the US sanctions and tariffs targeting Russia’s energy revenues as a ‘historic moment’.
Mr Dmitriev said: ‘The Trump administration’s suspension of the Graham Act is an important and truly historic moment.’
He added that the sanctions would have caused ‘serious damage first and foremost to the US economy and global markets’.
The move by Mr Trump followed the reported partial blocking of Starlink’s internet service to the Ukrainian armed forces and threats to halt intelligence sharing with Kyiv, steps criticised by Mr Zelensky.
There is speculation their relationship is now at ‘breaking point’.
Mr Putin and his top war commander General Valery Gerasimov sought to persuade Mr Trump that he is on the point of major war breakthroughs – yet they were accused of ‘lies’.
General Gerasimov claimed the ‘liberation’ of key frontline hubs Dobropillia, Oleksiievo-Druzhkivka and Serhiivka, as well as the destruction of a 2,000-strong Ukrainian force encircled in the Kharkiv region.
They fictitiously claimed the entire Luhansk region was in Russian hands – as they have falsely claimed before.
Passengers asleep on the floor of an airport in Russia amid the travel chaos
People sleeping in an airport cafe as they are left stranded by flight cancellations
One passenger claims she has been left stranded in Russia for three days
Mr Putin – wearing his commander-in-chief’s military uniform – said: ‘Overall, I note a positive trend in the actions of the force groupings….
‘The pace of advancement has quickened, as evidenced by the results achieved in carrying out combat missions…..’
He boasted of the ‘capture of the city of Dobropillia’ when it is partially controlled by Ukraine, and said: ‘The liberation of Donetsk People’s Republic remains, without a doubt, one of our primary objectives.’
Even Russian pro-war channels accused Moscow of making an AI video of a soldier waving a Russian flag in blitzed Dobropillia.
He has so far missed 14 separate deadlines for taking control of Ukraine’s Donetsk region, and has recently lost territory here.
General Gerasimov told Putin Russian forces were already three miles from Zaporizhzhia.
Military Informant channel indicated the claim was nonsense and said: ‘There is simply no point in picking all this apart.’
Meanwhile, Ukraine staged a devastating 1,615-mile strike at Russia’s largest facility for producing oil and gas condensate mixtures in Siberian city Surgut – Mr Putin’s oil capital.
Smoke rose from the Chernomyrdin Surgut Condensate Stabilisation Plant owned by Gazprom in remote Khanty-Mansi region.
Russian forces inflicted more agony on Ukraine overnight as Mr Putin seeks to switch off electricity, water and heating for winter.
A power plant was hit in Zhytomyr, a metals plant in Kryvyi Rih, Mr Zelensky’s birthplace, and a steelworks in Zaporizhzhia.
Russia dropped FAB-250 aerial bombs on Sloviansk, hitting a residential building where one was killed and ten wounded, with searches underway amid the rubble.
