Ukraine urges UN aviation agency to fully ban operations in Russian airspace

Ukraine has urged the UN's aviation agency to ask its members to fully ban operations in Russian airspace, a day after President Volodymyr Zelensky warned it was "becoming completely ​unsafe". On Tuesday, top ‌Ukrainian officials said the country would step up retaliation against Russia's intensified strikes on Kyiv, which ⁠has been under continuous air raid alerts for seven days and has suffered hits on civilian infrastructure. Ukraine would only target Russian military facilities and not threaten civilian aircraft, Zelensky ‌added, but he stressed that the growing number of Ukrainian drones in Russian skies should "be taken into account". In ⁠a letter to International Civil Aviation Organisation Chairman Juan Carlos Salazar, a copy of which was exclusively shared with Reuters, Ukraine's Infrastructure Minister Mykola Kalashnyk said Kyiv believed the risk of tragedies in the skies should be minimised. Ukraine ​asked ICAO to encourage aviation authorities and airlines to safeguard civil aviation, "including by facilitating the full prohibition ‌by ICAO member states of civil aircraft operations within the airspace of the Russian Federation". While European and US carriers do not fl...