Russia leaves out Cuba in the resumption of unrestricted flights to 52 ‘friendly countries’
HAVANA, April 6th Russia will lift flight restrictions to 52 “friendly” countries, among which Cuba has been excluded as announced on Monday by Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin, the Russian agency TASS reported.
“As of April 9, we lifted the coronavirus restriction, which applied to our regular and charter flights between Russia and a number of countries, “said the prime minister.
According to Mishustin, the incidence of Covid-19 is decreasing, so the time has come to expand the destinations available to Russian airlines.
“Now, we are resuming flights with 52 countries, including Argentina, India, China, South Africa and other friendly states.“, Mishustin added. He recalled that previously it was only possible to fly to 15 countries without restrictions, including some states of the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU), Qatar, Mexico and others.
The coronavirus task force said that, as of April 9, the decision was made to Completely lift restrictions on scheduled and charter flights to the following countries: Algeria, Argentina, Afghanistan, Bahrain, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Botswana, Brazil, Venezuela, Vietnam, Hong Kong, Egypt, Zimbabwe, Israel, India, Indonesia, Jordan, Iraq, Kenya, China, North Korea, Costa Rica, Kuwait, Lebanon, Lesotho, Mauritius, Madagascar, Malaysia, Maldives, Morocco, Mozambique, Moldova, Mongolia, Myanmar, Namibia, Oman, Pakistan, Peru, Saudi Arabia, Seychelles, Serbia, Syria, Thailand, Tanzania, Tunisia, Turkey, Uruguay, Fiji, the Philippines, Sri Lanka, Ethiopia, South Africa and Jamaica.
At the end of February, Russian airlines suspended their flights to Cuba and the Caribbean, due to the closure of airspace in Europe and Canada as a sanction on Moscow after President Vladimir Putin ordered the invasion of Ukraine.
In March, the Russian airline Azur Air completed a program of repatriation flights to take out Russian citizens who were on vacation in various Caribbean destinations including the Island.
Azur Air said it transported more than 12,600 passengers who were in Cuba, Mexico and the Dominican Republic on 33 flights.. In those same operations, just under a hundred citizens of Latin American countries who were stranded in Russia were able to return to Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Chile, Costa Rica and Argentina.
The exclusion of Cuba from the current list of “friendly” countries without flight restrictions keeps hundreds of Cubans who are stranded in Russia.
In March, the Havana government said it was conducting efforts to solve the situation of Cubans trapped in Russia by the war in a message in which he did not clarify the ways to get his citizens out of that country.
