MOSCOQW: At Kiev’s Boryspil airport, Igor, a 28-year-old Russian returning from what he calls an “excellent” trip to the Ukrainian capital, grumbles about the overnight journey he faces home.
“I don’t see why I have to fly back to Moscow via Minsk [in neighbouring Belarus],” he complains.
Behind him, Timur, a regular business traveller between Russia and Ukraine, is similarly disgruntled. “We used to pay about $50 one-way for a direct flight to St Petersburg. Now I’m paying $200 [to go via Belarus],” he says.
Flights between Ukraine and western Russian cities used to be cheap, plentiful and short — carrying hundreds of thousands of passengers a year.
Now, they have become the latest casualty of a growing trade war that began before street protests ousted Viktor Yanukovich as Ukrainian president last year — as Moscow tried to dissuade him from signing an integration deal with the EU.
Late last month, Kiev banned most Russian flights to Ukraine on the grounds that its carriers had violated national airspace by flying to Russian-annexed Crimea. The move was part of broader Ukraine-imposed sanctions aimed at punishing Russia for the still-smouldering war in breakaway eastern regions.
Moscow struck back by barring Ukrainian airlines from flying into Russia, underlining the extent to which long-standing political, social and economic ties between two Slavic “brother” nations have unravelled.
Trade with Russia halved year-on-year in the first nine months of this year — and things could get worse.
Moscow has threatened to raise tariffs and eliminate all trade preferences if the EU-Ukraine free trade deal — eventually signed by Kiev’s new government after Mr Yanukovich’s departure — goes fully into effect as planned in January.
Alexei Ulyukayev, Russia’s economy minister, said last week that the EU-Ukraine deal was “absolutely unacceptable” to Russia, adding that Moscow would bar Ukrainian food products from January 1. His announcement came despite a year of three-way talks, including Moscow, on mitigating Russian concerns regarding the EU deal.
Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, has pushed Brussels to do all it can to meet Moscow’s concerns over the trade deal, and ensure that President Vladimir Putin of Russia cannot use it as an excuse to put more pressure on Ukraine. But EU officials believe that whatever they negotiate on the technicalities, Russia’s response will ultimately be a political one.
lamic banking assets reach Rs14.47 trillion, sector share rises to 23%
KARACHI: Pakistan’s Islamic banking sector expanded during 2025, increasing its share in the country’s financial system with assets reaching nearly...
