Ukraine’s Neighbor Moldova to Resume Russia-bound Flights

The national air carrier of ex-Soviet Moldova announced Friday that it will resume flights to Russia after services were halted for several months due to Moscow’s invasion of neighboring Ukraine.

“The airline Air Moldova will resume the operation of flights to Moscow starting Oct. 1, after their interruption from February 2022,” the airline said in a statement.

The decision comes following “countless requests from citizens of the Republic of Moldova” living in Russia and “passengers’ requests to use tickets purchased during the pandemic”, it added.

Before the Russian invasion, Air Moldova ran routes to Russia’s capital Moscow, its second city Saint Petersburg and the city of Krasnodar in the south.

The company did not specify whether flights would be resuming to the two other airports.

Moldova closed the country’s airspace on February 24, the same day Russian troops entered Ukraine, Moldova’s neighbor to the east. It was reopened on March 21.

Moldova, a country of 2.6 million people wedged between Romania and Ukraine, was in late June granted EU candidate status.
However, the process of its accession to the bloc could take many years.