Russia Strikes Abandoned Soviet-Era Planes in Kyiv to Send a Signal to the US, Lawmaker Says

Russia may have struck two long-inactive Yak-40 passenger aircraft at Igor Sikorsky Kyiv International Airport (Zhuliany) on September 4, according to preliminary information relayed by Ukrainian lawmaker Oleksii Honcharenko.

Honcharenko, a member of Ukraine's parliament, reported the strike in a Telegram post, describing the target as unusually obsolete. Kyiv Post, which relayed his account, emphasized that no official confirmation of the reported attack had been issued.

Honcharenko framed the incident as a deliberate message from Russian leader Vladimir Putin to Washington.

"Essentially, Putin is sending a signal to the Americans: I don't want to negotiate and I won't," he wrote, questioning the purpose of what he called a demonstrative strike.

The two aircraft were Soviet-era passenger jets that, according to Honcharenko, had not flown even before the full-scale invasion began. He indicated the planes had sat out of service for years, making them a target of negligible military value. As of his post, both the damage and the strike itself remained preliminary and unverified.

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War in Ukraine

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Zhuliany is a civilian airport in the Ukrainian capital that handled passenger flights before the full-scale Russian invasion.

Ukraine closed its airspace to civilian aviation on February 24, 2022, and it remains closed because of the risks posed by the war.

As a result, regular passenger flights do not operate to Kyiv, and Ukrainians, foreign visitors, and official delegations generally enter and travel around the country by train or road, often crossing through neighboring European states.

Honcharenko tied the timing to an anticipated visit by US representatives Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, whom he stated were due in Kyiv on Sunday after a Saturday stop in Moscow.

He noted the envoys had been close to agreeing to fly into Boryspil Airport, but the strike had likely pushed them toward reaching the capital by road instead.

The prospect of an envoy visit has been trailed by repeated postponements for months, with the American mission promised and delayed several times over the summer. Ukrainian officials had earlier assessed that Putin held little genuine interest in negotiations, an evaluation the reported strike appeared to reinforce.

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