Ukraine’s Airspace Rules: What Resolution No. 346 Actually Changed

On 28 March 2025 the Cabinet of Ministers adopted Resolution No. 346, amending the Regulations on the Use of Ukraine’s Airspace. It was reported at the time as a simplification: permits abolished, a request or a flight plan now enough. A year on, what actually happened is different. The permit did not disappear — its basis was rewritten, and the real control moved into a list of grounds on which a flight can be banned. That list is not in the Resolution: it came in a separate order and only took effect in 2026.

Cabinet of Ministers Resolution No. 346 of 28 March 2025 amends the Regulations on the Use of the Airspace of Ukraine, approved by Resolution No. 954 of 6 December 2017. It was published in the official gazette on 1 April 2025 and entered into force six months later — on 1 October 2025.

That is the text in force: as of August 2026 there have been no later amendments to the Regulations. The legal frame in which Ukraine’s sky will reopen is already written and operative, even though commercial flights are not being performed.

Paragraph 18 now reads: an airspace user files an airspace use request with the bodies of the joint civil–military air traffic management system, and for operations under general air traffic a flight plan may be filed instead. That is where “permits abolished” came from.

But paragraph 23 kept the permit and rewrote its basis: a permit to use the airspace of Ukraine “is granted on the basis of an airspace use request in the absence of grounds to prohibit the departure of an aircraft from a Ukrainian aerodrome, its arrival at a Ukrainian aerodrome, or overflight of the territory of Ukraine”.

The difference is not cosmetic. Previously you had to obtain a permit. Now the permit follows unless there is a ground against it. A permissive model became a prohibitive one with exceptions — and all the weight shifted onto the list of grounds for prohibition.

The list is not in Resolution No. 346 itself: paragraph 23 delegated it to a procedure to be approved by the Ministry for Development jointly with the Ministry of Defence. It arrived eight months later — joint order No. 1675/846 of 3 December 2025, registered with the Ministry of Justice on 14 January 2026 under No. 56/45450, issued under Article 46(7) of the Air Code and paragraph 23 of the Regulations.

The prohibition is issued by Ukraeorocentre, the Ukrainian centre for airspace use planning and air traffic regulation. There are eleven grounds:

1. the aircraft is classified as a “probable threat” or a “confirmed threat” under the procedure approved by Resolution No. 153 of 7 February 2007;
2. there is no schedule approved by the State Aviation Administration for scheduled services to or from a Ukrainian aerodrome;
3. there are no approved departure (arrival) plans for non-scheduled services;
4. the flight has been prohibited by the State Aviation Administration or the General Staff within their competence;
5. the permits of the State Aviation Administration or the General Staff required by Section IV of the Procedure are missing;
6. the Cabinet of Ministers permit required by Section IV is missing;
7. the flights as filed breach civil or state aviation regulations, or pose a threat to flight safety;
8. the flight ranks lower in airspace priority than another user’s simultaneous activity and the conflict cannot be resolved tactically;
9. the operator has been refused air navigation services when planning the flight in controlled airspace;
10. a prohibition on airspace use is in force along the planned route and no alternative route is available;
11. a restriction is in force along the route, the filed flight does not meet its conditions, and no alternative route is available.

Ukraeorocentre notifies the operator, the State Aviation Administration and the airspace control bodies. No prohibition is issued in respect of the activities listed in Article 24(2)(1)–(5) of the Air Code.

The planning takeaway is blunt: most of the grounds are not about safety at the moment of departure but about paperwork filed in advance. An approved schedule, approved plans for a non-scheduled flight, General Staff permits — it is their absence that switches a flight off.

Paragraph 46, which lists breaches of the airspace use regime, was extended. It is now a breach to depart from a flight plan without an ATC clearance or the agreement of the air traffic service unit, emergencies aside.

The qualifier matters: a deviation agreed with the controller is not a breach — what is penalised is an unilateral one. Two further entries were added: performing a flight for which information on a prohibition of airspace use has been received, and failure to observe the conditions of airspace use as such.

Paragraph 30(1) was rewritten. Prohibited zones are established over nuclear power plants, hydroelectric plants, dams, category I critical infrastructure facilities, important state facilities, nature reserves, and facilities or industrial plants of heightened environmental hazard.

For critical infrastructure there is a condition that is easy to miss: the prohibition applies where the facility’s safety passport prescribes air traffic restriction measures. Category I status alone does not close the sky above a site — the entry in the safety passport does.

Before these changes the competent body in the relevant part of the Regulations was the State Aviation Administration. Paragraph 38 now names the Ministry for Development of Communities and Territories — and it is that ministry, together with the Ministry of Defence, that approved the prohibition procedure. The General Staff issues permits for state aircraft operations. Requests for aerial photography — and, after the amendments, for laser scanning — are handled by the State Aviation Administration, which informs the applicant through the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

One more change worth noting: where paragraph 26 spoke of “class G airspace”, it now covers class F, class G and unclassified airspace.

The sky is closed and Resolution No. 346 does not change that. What it changes is how the sky will reopen: not by a single decision, but through a procedure in which a flight stays alive as long as none of the eleven grounds for prohibition applies.

For a carrier, operator or lessor planning a return to Ukraine, that means:

• the task is not to “obtain a permit” but to stay clear of the grounds for prohibition: schedules and flight plans have to be approved in advance;
• routes need checking against prohibitions and restrictions, including zones over critical infrastructure, where everything turns on the safety passport of the particular facility;
• any departure from the flight plan must be agreed with the air traffic service unit, or it is a breach;
• keep the aeronautical information publications in view: that is where the procedure and deadlines for filing requests are published.

The other half of the problem is not regulatory but financial: the frame may be ready, but no flight departs without cover. On that, see the insurance facility a restart requires.