Malta closes its airspace to Russian airlines

Malta will be closing its airspace to Russian airlines in solidarity with Ukraine amid intense fighting in key Ukrainian cities.

Prime Minister Robert Abela announced the measure on Sunday afternoon through Twitter.

"Maltese airspace will be closed to Russian airlines. [The Maltese government] is taking this action in full solidarity with Ukraine," he wrote.

Abela previously announced that Maltese government will send humanitarian aid to Ukraine, especially medical supplies.

Apart from aid, Malta will be joining other EU member states in imposing sanctions on key Russian individuals, banks, and companies.

On Saturday evening the European Commission, in coordination with the USA, France, Germany, Italy, Canada and the UK, agreed on new measures that will be proposed to EU leaders.

The new sanctions proposed by Brussels include the removal of a “certain number of Russian banks” from SWIFT, the international bank transactions messaging service. 

On 24 February, Putin ordered an invasion of Ukraine, which he called “a special military operation based on a request from the heads of the Donbass republics” – the breakaway Russian-speaking region in Ukraine.

Specifically, EC President Ursula von der Leyen said the EC will commit to taking measures to limit the sale of so-called golden passports “that let wealthy Russians connected to the Russian government become citizens of our countries and gain access to our financial systems”.

Von der Leyen had already warned that Malta’s citizenship-by-investment scheme has to stop in a visit to Prime Minister Robert Abela.

The Labour government has so far ignored calls to stop the sale of passports to Russian high-net-worth individuals, with ministers sticking to a stock reply that Malta will be in step with all sanctions agreed upon by the EU