Conflict Zone Drones, Civil Aviation And Airspace Safety

Well, thank you for having me, Karen, and this situation i- is one that OSPREY has been monitoring very closely, not just for the last few days or, or months, uh, but the last several years.

Uh, since 2023 in particular, Ukraine has started to conduct drone attacks deeper and deeper into Russian territory, and during these drone attacks, Russia closes airports and portions of its airspace, uh, for periods of time, uh, as it's conducting civil military deconfliction, uh, to, to deal with the, the, the drones with air and air defense activity.

Now, this activity has gotten more increased in frequency over the years to the point where in August alone, we had over 900 airport periods of disruption inside of Russian airspace, including airports in Moscow, St. Petersburg, and Sochi, three of the largest urban centers in the country.

Now, Zelenskyy making the statement now, uh, is effectively telling the rest of the world what they've been doing for the last couple months in particular, which is systematically disrupting Russian airspace.

Now, saying Russian airspace is unsafe or that civilian aircraft shouldn't fly in the airspace because of the drone activity and the air defense activity, Zelenskyy hasn't said anything different than what the European Union, for example, has said.

The European Union Aviation Safety Agency, EASA, has a conflict zone information bulletin for Western Russian airspace.

It says it's high risk at all altitudes.

It recommends operators, obviously EU-registered operators, but in general it recommends not flying in that portion of the airspace due to safety issues.

So Zelenskyy hasn't necessarily said anything differently than what other governments, for example, have said, but the timing is meant to apply pressure to Russia publicly.

It puts, uh, economic focus on the, the conflict, not just the actual kinetic fighting, but now you have airlines registered in countries throughout the Asia Pacific region, countries in the Middle East and North Africa that still have diplomatic ties with Russia, and now their air carriers are being put in the spotlight as still having flights, uh, to Moscow.

And so pressure is being applied to these countries to now have to look at what their airlines are doing and then potentially make statements on the topic.

The airlines are having to make statements on the topic, and so it's bringing the war in its conflict state to the forefront of the interconnection of air travel between different parts of the world, and that intersection between civil aviation and where conflict zone activity, uh, is occurring is one that typically gets plenty of attention, especially in a country like Russia, where on Christmas Day of 2024, they accidentally shot down a, a airliner, um, during a Ukrainian drone attack in an incident of misidentification.

So Zelenskyy is essentially just highlighting the potential risk that airlines could face if they fly in Russian airspace.

Not really a different warning than what, again, European authorities have already said, but it brings the focus back on how is Russia trying to conduct a war while at the same time have economic activity and tourism and trade that is facilitated by air travel.

And essentially calling out the airlines, calling out the insurers brings this to the public attention again.

It doesn't necessarily highlight activity that's new or different, it's just bringing it back to the forefront.

Yeah, that, that is interesting because essentially what he's saying, it's not, it's not like he came, made the statement sort of saying, "It, it's about to become very dangerous.

I'm, like, I'm giving you advance warning." This has been happening and building, uh, for some time, um, so i- he's not, he's not warning of something to come.

He's basically warning of something that's already there and, and getting, y- to be more of an issue.

You've got some numbers, I think, in terms of sort of how the- A number of drones and drone activity has, has been increasing there

Yes.

I...

So when this started to happen where outside of border provinces, as in how OSPREY tracks the data, essentially over 300 kilometers inside of Russian airspace we consider a deep strike, uh, in, uh, uh, in, uh, in the conflict.

And so we were seeing, you know, 20 to 50 attacks in 2023 per month, right? So maybe one or two a day.

In 2024, it went from, like, 50 to 100, so you know, two or three a day.