The airspace of the European Union’s entire 27-nation bloc will now be closed to Russian-owned, -registered or -controlled aircraft, “including the private jets of oligarchs”, said European Commission President Ursula von der Leyden on Sunday.
Countermeasures imposed by Russia will make it more difficult for European carriers to fly east, notably to Asia.
-Reported by Annabelle Timsit and Paulina Firozi in The Washington Post.
The United Kingdom (England, Scotland, Wales, North Ireland) is no longer part of the EU, of course.
Switzerland (on the east of France) never was, and never will be. (Never say never?)
That’s Belarus north of Ukraine— and check out that little blob of blue on the Baltic Sea, north of Poland. It’s Russian territory, an exclave called Kaliningrad Oblast.
It used to be part of East Prussia, and home to the German city of Königsberg. In the aftermath of World War II, it was given to Russia. In 1947-48 the German population was driven out, and Königsberg was renamed Kaliningrad in memory of Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR Mikhail Kalinin.