All four major airports in Moscow - Sheremetyevo, Vnukovo, Domodedovo and Zhukovsky - paused flights yesterday afternoon after the „Kover" („Carpet") protocol was activated. This is the code Russian air forces trigger in response to any airborne threat from unmanned aircraft. According to Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin, anti-aircraft units shot down ten Ukrainian drones heading toward the capital.

Sobyanin's statement: „Anti-aircraft defence forces repelled an attack by yet another drone heading toward Moscow." Bomb-disposal and investigation teams are collecting the remains of the downed aircraft. No casualties or damages have been reported.

What is the „Kover" protocol? In translation - „carpet" - and the term is descriptive. The entire airspace over Moscow is „blanketed" with a flight ban, and all four airports are placed on hold. For a city handling more than 60 million passengers a year, this is not a trivial measure. It means hundreds of flights cancelled, thousands of passengers stranded in uncertainty, and significant losses for Russian airlines every time it is triggered.

This is not the first time in recent memory. Drones reaching Moscow have become a routine occurrence in recent months. In 2024 and 2025 there were dozens of such incidents. The Kremlin's earlier narrative - that the war in Ukraine does not touch Russian civilians - keeps falling apart with each drone finding its way to Moscow, to Russian oil refineries, airports and military bases deep in the country's interior.

For the Balkans this is an important picture. Drones are redefining warfare. They are cheap, hard to detect, and can cross fronts hundreds of kilometres deep. No Balkan city is secured against this kind of threat. Skopje, Belgrade, Sarajevo, Tirana - all are within reach of a cheap drone with simple navigation. If NATO members are vulnerable (Moscow is not NATO, but it has stronger air defences than any Balkan city), then we are much more vulnerable still.

The question the Kremlin does not want to answer: why does a Ukrainian drone breach Russia's airspace every month? The official line is that they are all shot down, that air defence is working. But the activation of the „Kover" protocol by definition means there is a real threat - not panic, but assessment. Moscow has said „everything is under control" several times, and several times it has been shown that the control is only partial.