Ukrainian drone attacks forced flight restrictions at 22 Russian airports overnight between October 15 and 16, 2026, with the civil aviation regulator Rosaviatsiya moving to limit flight activity across the country's network.

Moscow Sheremetyevo (SVO), Domodedovo (DME), Vnukovo (VKO) and Zhukovsky (ZIA) all operated under restrictions, imposed, according to Interfax, "to ensure flight safety". St Petersburg Pulkovo (LED) suspended flight operations outright overnight.

Regional airports also closed temporarily. Tambov (TBW), two airports serving Yaroslavl (CEE and IAR), Penza (PEZ) and Saratov (GSV) halted operations during the barrage.

What does this change for operations?

Operations have since resumed, but residual delays persist at Vnukovo, Sheremetyevo and Pulkovo, according to FlightRadar24 data. For carriers and their passengers, the practical consequence is a rolling disruption pattern centered on the two busiest metropolitan systems in Russia, Moscow and St Petersburg, rather than a single-airport event.

The scale of the attack explains the breadth of the restrictions. On October 16, 2026, state news agency TASS reported that the Russian Defense Ministry confirmed Ukraine launched 644 drones across regions overnight, including 57 drones heading towards Moscow.

The drone activity extended beyond aviation infrastructure. Monitoring channels ExileNova+ and SuperNova+ reported that a Yandex data center in Vladimir Oblast was struck — the same facility hit on October 11, 2026, five days earlier.

What comes next for Russian airports?

The Atlantic reports that Ukraine is preparing to take a more aggressive stance against Russian airports using AI-guided drones, a shift with direct implications for route planning, scheduling buffers and insurance exposure across the Russian network.

The political context matters. Relations between Ukraine and the United States are severely strained after US President Donald Trump told Ukraine to stop striking Russian oil refineries. A more muscular approach to airports could be an option, The Atlantic reports.

Striking airports with drones has been discussed in Kyiv before. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy previously wanted to minimize the risk to travelers, according to The Atlantic.

AI-guided drones at scale

The technology could remove that constraint. AI-guided drones could be deployed to evade Russian air defenses and strike airports, and sources told The Atlantic that these drones will soon be built at scale.

For Rosaviatsiya and Russian airport operators, that shift would move airport strikes from episodic, overnight disruptions toward a sustained operational risk. The October 15–16 event — 22 airports restricted, both capital-city hubs affected, delays carrying into the following day at three major gateways — offers a measure of what a single night of drone activity already costs in lost capacity.

If production of AI-guided drones scales as sources describe, the frequency and precision of such attacks on Russian civil aviation infrastructure are set to increase.