The EU has imposed a blanket flight ban on Russian planes, the head of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, has announced.
“We are shutting down EU airspace for Russian-owned, Russian-registered or Russian-controlled aircraft,” she said.
All such planes, including the private jets of oligarchs, will now be unable to land in, take off from or fly over any EU nation.
Russian planes have also been banned from UK airspace.
Ahead of the decision, European countries had been closing their airspace one by one. Germany said its ban would last three months.
Departure boards at Moscow’s Domodedovo and Sheremetyevo airports showed dozens of cancellations on Sunday, including flights to Paris, Vienna and Kaliningrad.
Russia’s S7 Airlines said on Facebook it would cancel flights to many of its European destinations until at least 13 March.
Aeroflot, Russia’s biggest airline, said it would cancel its services to Latvia and Romania until at least 26 March, and its Prague and Warsaw routes until 28 March.
Russia has responded with tit-for-tat restrictions on countries banning its flights.
