Hundreds of flights across Russia were canceled or delayed after a wave of drone threats triggered major shutdowns at airports in Moscow and other cities overnight.

Moscow’s Sheremetyevo Airport halted takeoffs and landings twice overnight – first from 1:00 to 4:07 a.m., and again from 4:25 to 5:30 a.m. – following reports of Ukrainian drone attacks.

The disruptions quickly rippled through Russia’s air traffic network. According to Meduza, Aeroflot, Russia’s flagship airline, canceled at least 106 flights to and from Moscow on Wednesday, May 7, with more than 140 others delayed.

Dozens more were affected across the Aeroflot Group, which includes Rossiya and Pobeda airlines.

Other airports in the Moscow area – Domodedovo, Vnukovo, and Zhukovsky – also faced temporary closures on the evening of May 6. Flights were rerouted to alternate cities like St. Petersburg, Kazan, and Nizhny Novgorod.

At Sheremetyevo, crowds of frustrated passengers lined up at service counters, trying to rebook tickets or get refunds. Some travelers reportedly slept on the airport floor or on their luggage, waiting for updates.

In one extreme case, an Emirates flight from Dubai to Moscow was forced to land in St. Petersburg, where passengers were kept on the plane for six hours and later told to find their own way to Moscow.

A similar story unfolded on an Antalya-Moscow flight, where travelers said they were held onboard for over seven hours.

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According to the Baza Telegram channel, passengers on flights from Tashkent, Chelyabinsk, and Dubai spent the night inside grounded aircraft after being diverted to other cities.

In total, the North-Western Transport Prosecutor’s Office reported that 74 planes were redirected to St. Petersburg’s Pulkovo Airport alone.

The chaos comes as Russia and Ukraine traded a barrage of drone strikes overnight on Wednesday, in attacks that killed two in Kyiv – hours before Putin’s unilateral “3-day-truce” order was set to come into effect.

Ukraine said it had struck several Russian strategic defense industry facilities, including enterprises developing advanced weapons and military technology.

Russian Defense Ministry reported shooting down several drones aimed at the capital, prompting emergency safety measures across airports in Moscow and other cities across Russia.