Russia’s foreign minister grounded by EU ban on flights

Russia’s diplomatic mission says a planned visit by foreign minister Sergei Lavrov to the United Nations in Geneva has been cancelled after EU countries closed their airspace to flights from Russia.

Mr Lavrov had been expected to attend high-level meetings at the Human Rights Council and the Conference on Disarmament.

A news conference was planned.

The mission tweeted that the cancellation of the trip to landlocked Switzerland was due to an “unprecedented ban” on Mr Lavrov’s flight by “a number of EU countries that have imposed anti-Russian sanctions”.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen announced the new airspace measures on Sunday along with the plan to send weapons to Ukraine under the ‘arms-to-Ukraine scheme’.

The measures have been introduced as part of sanctions following Moscow's invasion of Ukraine.

In a tweet, Ms Von der Leyen said: “They won’t be able to land in, take off or overfly the territory of the EU. Including the private jets of oligarchs.”

EU countries have taken individual actions and announced bans on Russian planes over the last few days.

The UK banned Russian planes from their airspace on February 27.

In a retaliatory move, British airlines have been banned from landing at Russia's airports and from crossing its airspace.

And Russia’s largest airline Aeroflot said on Sunday it would cancel all flights to European destinations.