Acta Iuris Stetinensis

On 24 February 2022, the President of the Russian Federation announced a military operation in Ukraine and Russian armed forces began an attack on Ukraine. The European Council condemned the Russian Federation’s military aggression against Ukraine. The Council introduced restrictive measures related to finance and aviation. The aim of this article is to analyse the compliance of the restrictive measures in the field of aviation, including prohibition of granting permission to land in, take off from, or overfly the European Union Member States’ territories to any aircraft operated by Russian air carriers, to any Russian-registered aircraft, and to non-Russian-registered aircraft which are owned or chartered, or otherwise controlled by a Russian legal or natural person, with international aviation law. The basic research method consisted in an analysis of the legal status in force, the established line of judicial decisions and views of legal scholars and commentators. It led to the conclusion that the prohibition of Russian aircraft from flying in the European Union member states’ territories did not violate international aviation law, in particular the provisions of the Chicago Convention of 1944. It was a consequence of the principle of territorial sovereignty generally accepted in contemporary aviation law. It was also justified by security reasons and the need to protect the inviolability of the borders of EU member states (with particular emphasis on the countries bordering Russia, Belarus and Ukraine).