Here's how the Kremlin's hastily assembled logic sounds: the state that launched a war against its neighbor on February 24, 2022, and has bombarded Ukrainian cities ever since, is now labeling as a "terrorist" the man leading the country under attack — because he warned insurers and airlines that the skies over Russia are becoming dangerous due to that very war. Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova went so far as to call him a "mentally ill terrorist." Orwell would nod in approval — war is peace, and the victim is the aggressor.
The trigger was a post by Volodymyr Zelensky from September 1. In it, the Ukrainian president doesn't threaten civilian aircraft — he warns that because of Ukrainian drones over Russia, the risk to aviation is rising, and asks carriers to take that into account. Nowhere does it say "attack passenger planes." It says the opposite: Ukraine does not view civilian aviation as a target. Yet for Zakharova, that very warning amounts to "outright terrorism" aimed at "sowing panic." In other words, warning someone of danger becomes a crime if the warning is inconvenient for the aggressor. While Zakharova talks of "intimidation," Putin has already called Zelensky's words "state terrorism," and Russia's transport minister has announced new measures to protect airports. Rosaviatsia, meanwhile, has long been suspending operations at airports at every signal of an approaching drone — meaning Russia itself acknowledges that its skies are no longer safe, exactly as Zelensky warned. But instead of asking themselves "why," Moscow prefers to point fingers outward.
And the answer to "why" is simple and hardly a mystery: Ukrainian drones fly over Russian territory because Russia has spent four and a half years striking Ukrainian cities, energy infrastructure and civilians. Strikes on Russian oil depots and military facilities are part of the defense of a country fending off an invasion — not terrorism, but a war that Russia itself brought upon its neighbor. Zakharova speaks of historical figures convinced they could "rearrange the world according to their own wishes" — a phrase that describes the Kremlin more accurately than anything else, if one reads it carefully.
That's why this story isn't "a dispute between two capitals," where each side reads events its own way. There is only one reading supported by the facts: in February 2022, Russia invaded Ukraine. Since then, Russian missiles and drones have struck Ukrainian cities and civilians almost every night. Ukrainian strikes on Russian territory are a response to that aggression, not a mirror of it. And when the president of the country under attack warns that the skies above the aggressor are no longer a safe place — that is not terrorism. It is simply the consequence of the war that Moscow started and continues to wage.