Ukraine closes its airspace to Russia

FILE - In this Wednesday, Oct. 7, 2015 file photo, a worker at a Ukrainian gas station Volovets in western Ukraine controls a valve. The Russian state-controlled gas company is halting supplies to Ukraine, its chief executive said Wednesday, Nov. 25, 2015, less than two months after the two countries struck an EU-sponsored deal. Gazprom's CEO Alexei Miller said Russia sent the last shipment to Ukraine at 10 a.m. local time on Wednesday and send no more because Ukraine has not paid in advance for future supplies. (AP Photo/Pavlo Palamarchuk) FILE - In this Wednesday, Oct. 7, 2015 file photo, a worker at a Ukrainian gas station Volovets in western Ukraine controls a valve. The Russian state-controlled gas company is halting supplies to Ukraine, its chief executive said Wednesday, Nov. 25, 2015, less than two months after the two countries struck an EU-sponsored deal. Gazprom's CEO Alexei Miller said Russia sent the last shipment to Ukraine at 10 a.m. local time on Wednesday and send no more because Ukraine has not paid in advance for future supplies. (AP Photo/Pavlo Palamarchuk)

By Associated Press November 25, 2015 1 min read

MOSCOW (AP) – Ukraine’s prime minister says his government has decided to close the country’s airspace to all Russian planes.

Ukraine last month banned all Russian airlines from flying into Ukraine but Russian planes have been allowed to fly over its territory.

The decision to shut the airspace was announced by Arseny Yatsenyuk at a televised government session on Wednesday. It comes as tensions simmer between Russia and Ukraine following Russia’s annexation of Crimea last year and a separatist war in eastern Ukraine which has killed more than 8,000 people and left parts of the industrial heartland in ruins.

The Russian gas monopoly Gazprom earlier on Wednesday announced that it was cutting off gas supplies to Ukraine because the country had not paid in advance for supplies.