2 October 2015, 09:44 GMT
KIEV (Sputnik) – Ukraine is expecting an answer by the end of the day to the letter it sent to Russia to give an explanation as to why and which Ukrainian airlines have fallen into a blacklist banning commercial flights into and over Russia, Ukrainian Minister of Infrastructure said Friday.
“The Ukrainian state aviation service sent a letter yesterday to the Russian aviation service where it asked for the grounds of why a ban has been imposed and which Ukrainian airlines have been put on the list. We hope that we’ll get an answer from our Russian colleagues by the end of the day,” Andriy Pivovarsky said at a briefing in Kiev.
On September 16, Ukraine announced new wide-ranging sanctions, including the blacklisting of 25 Russian airlines, two of which are now defunct. On September 25, the Ukrainian cabinet announced the flight bans would take effect on October 25.
In a tit-for-tat response, Russia's Transport Ministry ordered the country's Federal Air Transport Agency to notify the Ukrainian side of termination of the use of Russian airspace as of October 25.
