Russian airlines resume flights to Cuba

By Al Mayadeen English
Source: Agencies
1 Jul 2023 13:56
2 Shares

Russia's Aerloft Airlines had been suspended from conducting flights to Cuba since Western countries banned it from their airspace since the onset of the war in Ukraine.

The Cuban flag at the Melia Varadero International Hotel in Matanzas Province (AFP)

Rossiya Airlines, a subsidiary of Aeroloft, has reportedly resumed conducting scheduled flights to Cuba after European countries banned it from operating in their airspace since the onset of the war in Ukraine.

Flights will be organized on a bi-weekly basis, Aeroflot said. The first flight departed from Sheremetyevo airport to the Cuban resort of Varadero.

The deputy prime minister for tourism, sport, culture, and communications, Dmitry Chernyshenko said that regular flights to Cuba (and Latin America-Caribbean region at large) would resume by skirting "unfriendly" airspace.

Earlier this week, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov tackled with the ambassadors of some G20 countries the West's attempts to add pressure on developing states regarding the war in Ukraine.

The G20 ambassadors from Argentina, Brazil, India, Indonesia, China, Mexico, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and South Africa, attended the meeting, the ministry indicated.

"The minister shared his assessments of Western states' pressure on developing countries in an attempt to draw them into certain formats in line with their interests, into adventurous plans for a peaceful settlement according to Western patterns, increasing the supply of weapons to the Kiev regime, protracting the armed confrontation in Ukraine and isolating Russia," it said.

The parties also discussed urgent issues of preparation for and agenda of the G20 summit in New Delhi on September 9-10.

It is worth noting that developing countries among others in the global South refused to side with the West's stance on the war in Ukraine. As the war on Ukraine drags on, the developing countries defy Western powers, taking a different stance and defying any attempts to isolate Russia.

Lavrov has lately said in an online speech to the Global Conference on Multipolarity that the United States and its allies' efforts to force the international community to adopt their version of the rule-based world order have failed.

"It seems only natural that efforts by Washington and its satellites to reverse the course of history and force the international community to live up to a ‘rules-based world order’ have failed. I will only mention the completely failed course toward isolating Russia that the Westerners have been pursuing," he told the attendees.