(With statement from Lufthansa)
KIEV, Feb 13 (Reuters) – Ukraine does not see fit to close its airspace amid escalating tension with Russia, an adviser to President Volodimir Zelensky’s chief of staff said on Sunday.
Dutch airline KLM announced on Saturday the immediate halt to its flights to Ukraine and German Lufthansa said on Sunday that it did not rule out suspending its own but that no decision had been made for the instant.
The Ukrainian SkyUp explained for its part that it had to land in Moldova one of its planes which was to connect Portugal to Ukraine because the owner of the device had forbidden it to enter space Ukrainian airline.
“The most important point is that Ukraine itself doesn’t see the point of closing the skies. It’s nonsense. And in my opinion, it would look like some kind of partial blockade,” presidential adviser Mikhailo Podoliak told Reuters.
“If some air carriers decide to reconfigure their flight plans, it certainly has nothing to do with the decisions or policies of our State,” he added.
In July 2014, a Malaysia Airlines plane carrying 298 people, two-thirds of them Dutch, was shot down by a missile while flying over eastern Ukraine.
(Report Pavel Polityuk;, French version Marc Angrand)