Flights leaving Russia sell out after Putin announces 'partial' mobilization
Russians rushed to leave the country after Putin declared “partial” mobilization. All the tickets to visa-free destinations have been sold out. The Russian news website The Insider reports that, according to the Russian travel search platform Aviasales, there are no tickets available for the flights to Istanbul for the next few days. There are also no direct tickets to other cities in Turkey: Antalya, Bodrum, Dalaman and Izmir.
There are no tickets for flights to Armenia – neither direct nor transit. There is also not a single available flight to Azerbaijan. Fights to Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Kazakhstan are all sold out too. Even tickets to the capital of Belarus, Minsk, are not available.
There are no tickets for September 21 to Thailand, Israel and even Peru, where Russians can stay without a visa for 180 days.
According to the news agency RBC, there are still some tickets available from Moscow to Istanbul for September 25 on Russian national airline "Aeroflot". Aeroflot tickets for flights to Baku and Tashkent are available only after September 23.
Since the beginning of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the number of flights from Russia abroad has fallen by 62%. All EU countries, Great Britain and the United States have closed their skies for Russian flights.