Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova called Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky a "mentally ill terrorist" and described his warnings about the dangers in the skies over Russia as "open terrorism." Her remarks came in an interview with reporters following the International Youth Festival, according to Bulgarian and Russian sources. The comments were prompted by a September 1 post from Zelensky, in which he warned airlines, insurers and passengers that Russian airspace was becoming increasingly dangerous because of Ukrainian drones.
The diagnosis Zakharova pinned on the Ukrainian president is her own political assessment, not a medical conclusion.
"What the Kyiv regime and Zelensky are doing is, of course, open terrorism. The goal of terrorists is to sow panic and intimidate. That is the essence, that is the engine, the driving force — not simply to seize, conquer, appropriate and plunder, or somehow exert influence, but to intimidate," Zakharova said. According to her, history has seen figures convinced that their fury and animosity could reshape the world according to their own wishes. International institutions have repeatedly identified fear as a tool of terrorist networks, she added — and it is through that lens that the Kremlin reads the Ukrainian leader's warning about Russian skies.
The statement that provoked Zakharova's anger was published on September 1 by the office of the Ukrainian president. In it, Zelensky warned insurance companies and airlines linked to Russian airports that the danger in the country's airspace was growing because of drones. In the same address, he firmly stressed that Ukraine does not threaten civil aviation and does not view passenger aircraft as targets. The consequences of the war, the president explained, are gradually reaching deeper into Russian territory, and carriers need to take that into account.
Moscow reads these words very differently. President Vladimir Putin has already called them a de facto declaration of "state terrorism," while Transport Minister Andrei Nikitin announced that aviation authorities are preparing additional measures to protect airports and air traffic. Rosaviatsia, for its part, said that when civilian flights are threatened it acts in coordination with other Russian institutions and security agencies. In recent months, the temporary suspension of operations at individual Russian airports has already become the standard response to reports of approaching drones.
"The West has literally convinced Zelensky that he is a central figure on the international agenda. That is a mistaken impression, but it has been instilled in him. Accordingly, he believes he can use this presumed status to spread fear and intimidation against those he hates. And he did. But the Earth hasn't stopped turning because of it," the Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman continued. Her words follow the line of Russian diplomacy, which presents Ukrainian drone strikes on Russian territory as terrorism, while Kyiv describes them as part of its resistance to the Russian invasion.
Zelensky himself linked the warning to air carriers to Ukrainian drone operations over Russian territory. Kyiv later clarified that it has already notified foreign partners and aviation-sector organizations of the dangers it says exist for flights over Russia. Moscow, for its part, insists that civil aviation will continue to operate, imposing temporary bans at individual airports when necessary. The dispute over airspace has thus become the latest front in the standoff between the two capitals, where the same events are read in fundamentally different ways by each side.