Pskov Airport cancelled all eight passenger flights scheduled for August 30 after a night-time drone attack, a spokeswoman for Russia’s civil aviation regulator (Rosaviatsiya) told reporters that morning, the RIA Novosti news agency reported.
“Today, August 30, 2023, in order to take additional measures for flight safety, six flights of Azimuth (A4, Rostov Platov) and two flights of Ikar (Russian Federation) (EO, Orenburg) were cancelled from Pskov Airport,” she said.
According to the ch-aviation capacities module, Ikar operates a scheduled route between Pskov and Minsk National, while Azimuth connects Pskov with Moscow Vnukovo, Kaliningrad, Mineralnye Vody, and Sochi.
However, according to the spokeswoman, all air transport facilities that ensure the operation of flights and Russia’s Unified Air Traffic Management System “continue to work in the normal mode.” The airport and Pskov Oblast’s regional services are “taking prompt measures to resume flights to/from Pskov Airport.”
Pskov regional governer Mikhail Vedernikov announced in the early hours of August 30 that the Defence Ministry was working to repel a drone attack on the airport. He later reported that there were no casualties but that a fire had started. Separately, the oblast’s Ministry of Emergency Situations reported that an Il-76 military transport aircraft had caught fire at the airport.
A representative of the rescue services told the news agency TASS that “four Il-76 aircraft were damaged as a result of the drone attack. A fire erupted and the fire caught two planes.”
Pskov is an international joint civilian and military air airfield under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Defence. According to its website, “the 334th military transport Berlin Red Banner Aviation Regiment, armed with Il-76 aircraft, is stationed at the airfield.”
Since the Russian invasion of Ukraine, there have been counterattacks on Russian territory with increasing frequency in recent months. This was the biggest attack since the beginning of the war, striking an airport far from the front lines, and there were more attacks during the same night further south, with the Russian military saying it shot down Ukrainian drones in the Bryansk, Kaluga, Oryol, and Ryazan regions as well as one near Sevastopol in Crimea.
