A large Ukrainian drone attack on Moscow on 20 September forced temporary flight restrictions at all four of the capital’s main airports and disrupted more than 400 flights. Sheremetyevo, Vnukovo, Domodedovo and Zhukovsky all faced arrivals and departures limits before operations were gradually restored, leaving airlines to work through cancellations, diversions and a prolonged backlog.
Sheremetyevo bore the heaviest impact, with hundreds of delayed and cancelled movements across inbound and outbound services. Other Moscow airports also reported delays and cancellations, while some flights were diverted to alternate airports including Nizhny Novgorod, Kazan, Cheboksary, Samara and St. Petersburg. The disruption affected both domestic and international schedules and continued after the restrictions were lifted as revised timetables filtered through the network.
The closures came amid a broader overnight drone assault on the Moscow region, with Russian air defences reported to have intercepted around 450 drones approaching the capital. Russian civil aviation authorities lifted the restrictions later in the day, but airport boards and carrier schedules remained under pressure as aircraft, crews and passengers were repositioned across the hub system.