Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky just issued a crazy and unexpected threat which portends a major escalation in the war. Certainly it will provoke the Kremlin into even more uncontrolled escalation and massive strikes, such as has been (somewhat unusually) happening on Odesa port as well as the capital city of late.
He has vowed moving forward to de facto close Russia's skies, and has put Russian airlines, insurers, and foreign governments on notice. Zelensky is in effect warning that airlines could be shot out of the sky - though he stopped short of voicing this directly.
"Today we want to warn every airline that uses Russian airspace, every insurer, everyone who still uses key Russian airports - Russian skies are becoming completely dangerous,"Zelensky stated.
"Although the Russian authorities do not report this as it should, the Russian sky will de facto be closed," he added.
As justification for the alarming announcement and threat, the Ukrainian leader pointed to the last several days of Moscow's heightened aerial assault on Ukraine which has left dozens of casualties. On Tuesday alone at least 12 were killed and another 21 injured in Ukraine's capital due to Russian missile and drone attacks.
"This is purely Russian terror against civilians. Since the beginning of the full-scale invasion, Russia has tried to block our ports, and due to Russian strikes on Ukraine, our skies are closed to civilian aviation," he added.
Though he emphasized that Russian airspace "will be de facto closed" because of Ukrainian drones, and that foreign governments and insurers must take this into account, Zelensky still sought to highlight that this does not constitute a threat to civilian aviation.
He also tried to present Western calls for restraint as folly, which he apparently will not listen to anymore, saying additionally:
"When the United States contacted us, asking us not to strike Moscow and St. Petersburg, we paused, and then we were attacked. When our partners contact us for negotiations, we are ready to ensure a period of calm in the Russian airspace. However, for the duration of the war, the Russian airspace is currently for Ukrainian drones, not for civilian aviation."
Invoking Russia's two largest cities, which are also major international travel hubs, is sure to get Kremlin leaders' attention. Both have come under increasingly drone attacks in the last several months. Dozens of airports across Russia have many times suffered forced closures, or else severe flight delays, due to the long-running drone war.
Russian President Putin just responded to Zelensky's wild threat, accusing Ukraine's leader of declaring "state terrorism" for warning airlines that Kyiv's drone offensive against Russia made that country's airspace unsafe.
"If this was said out loud, then it is simply a declaration of state terrorism," Putin said in a televised news conference.
"They are asking us to resume negotiations... but you don't negotiate with terrorists."
Interestingly, Zelensky also suggested he had paused such attacks for the sake of CIA Director John Ratcliffe's August 25 'secretive' trip to Moscow.
"Therefore, for the sake of diplomacy, for the sake of negotiations — when our partners turn to us about this — we will ensure that the Russian sky is cleared of drones for certain periods of time and in certain directions," he noted.
In the past, President Putin has not shown a willingness to back down in the face of such threats - instead he has often escalated in turn. The war is likely to get a lot worse before it gets better at this stage, with not even a hint of peace talks anywhere on the horizon.
Meanwhile, via Newsquawk late Tuesday, a new Putin warning: "Russian President Putin says Russia has blocked a large enemy force in eastern Ukraine and it keeps striking Ukrainian ports and energy facilities; is preparing massive strikes on Ukraine's energy targets."