A Drone Alert Shuts All Four Moscow Airports, and Sheremetyevo Moves Passengers Off Its Jets Into Shelters

On the afternoon of October 23, 2026, a Sheremetyevo drone alert sent passengers at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo Airport into shelters, and Rosaviatsia, Russia’s Federal Air Transport Agency, said all four Moscow airports had stopped accepting and dispatching aircraft. Flights bound for the capital held in the sky or diverted, 25 of them to St. Petersburg.

Sheremetyevo said on its official Telegram channel that it had resumed operations at 6:22 p.m. Moscow time, about four hours after its first restriction. Vnukovo and Domodedovo were still working under temporary airspace restrictions late that evening.

How the afternoon unfolded

The disruption built up over the day. At 12:55 p.m. and 1:00 p.m. Moscow time, Rosaviatsia said Vnukovo Airport and Domodedovo were only accepting and sending flights in coordination with the relevant authorities, because temporary airspace restrictions had been imposed around them.

At 2:04 p.m., Sheremetyevo announced restrictions inside its airspace perimeter under the “Kovyor” signal and warned passengers to expect long waits, including on board. At 2:49 p.m. it declared an air raid alert, told passengers to move to shelters and said the airport was closed to arrivals and departures.

Its alert notice told passengers to avoid elevators and windows and not to shelter on an aircraft. By 3:22 p.m., Sheremetyevo said staff were taking passengers off aircraft and that entry to the secure airside zone of every terminal was restricted.

At 3:19 p.m., Rosaviatsia said Vnukovo, Domodedovo, Zhukovsky and Sheremetyevo were all closed to arrivals and departures, with civil aviation in the Moscow region under the special control of the Transport Ministry and the agency. It reminded airlines that federal aviation rule FAP-82 obliges them to give delayed passengers drinks, meals and, where needed, a hotel.

Sheremetyevo lifted the alert at 4:48 p.m. and passengers returned from the shelters. The Kovyor restrictions came back at 5:23 p.m., were lifted again at 5:59 p.m., and the airport said it had resumed work at 6:22 p.m., with airlines still reshuffling their schedules.

In separate Telegram posts between 1:38 p.m. and 5:08 p.m., Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin reported a combined 21 drones shot down on their way to the city by Defense Ministry air defenses. He said emergency services were working at the sites where debris fell, but did not name those sites.

Diversions, holding jets and cancellations

St. Petersburg’s Pulkovo Airport, about 370 miles (600 km) from Moscow, took in 25 flights from Moscow, the St. Petersburg outlet Fontanka reported. Its press service told Fontanka that, depending on the airline, passengers either waited on board or were taken into the terminal.

Other flights stayed in the air. The Russian Telegram channel Shot reported about ten aircraft in holding patterns around Moscow, from Antalya, Minsk, Naryan-Mar, Dubai, Novosibirsk and St. Petersburg.

The Moscow Times, also citing Shot, reported that an Emirates Airbus A380 flying from Dubai to Domodedovo circled over the Penza region, about 345 miles (555 km) southeast of the capital, while it waited to land.

The same outlet said the Airports.ru tracker at one point listed 69 Moscow flights as canceled and 164 as delayed. Those figures moved through the afternoon, and AeroCorner found no final count for the day at the time of writing.

What “Kovyor” means for a flight

Kovyor, Russian for “carpet,” is the name of the procedure Russian airports use when drones may be in the area. As Novaya Gazeta Europe described it, aircraft on the ground stay there, aircraft that can land at once do so, and the rest climb and leave the danger zone.

The aim is to keep airliners out of airspace where air defenses may be engaging drones, so civil traffic is cleared first and the airport reopens only when the restriction is lifted.

Rosaviatsia’s notices come in two grades. A full closure stops arrivals and departures, while the softer “in coordination with the relevant authorities” status lets an airport keep working, but only with the agreement of the bodies controlling the restricted airspace.

Sheremetyevo’s own notices used both terms on October 23. “Kovyor” covered the airspace restriction around the airport, while the separate air raid alert covered the people inside the terminals, which is when passengers were moved off aircraft and into shelters.

The latest in a run of Moscow shutdowns

The stoppage followed a string of shutdowns this month. Overnight on October 15 to 16, Rosaviatsia restricted all four Moscow airports, and Meduza reported almost 160 delayed or canceled flights and 94 drones claimed shot down by Sobyanin. The Moscow Times put cancellations from October 16 to 18 at more than 500, citing Airports.ru.

Meduza also cited a count by the independent outlet Agentstvo: the four Moscow-area airports were closed for a combined 101 hours in the first 14 days of October, against 46 hours in all of September.

The restrictions were not limited to Moscow on October 23. Rosaviatsia’s channel listed temporary restrictions at airports including Kaluga, Nizhny Novgorod, Penza, Saransk, Saratov and Ulyanovsk during the day.

For travelers, Rosaviatsia and Sheremetyevo both told passengers to check their flight’s status before traveling to the airport, because airlines were still adjusting schedules after the restrictions were lifted.