JAKARTA - The airspace above St. Petersburg Airport, Russia was temporarily closed on Tuesday morning, amid an unconfirmed report that an unidentified object such as a drone was seen flying on it.
The city government said on its official Telegram channel that all flights at Pulkovo Airport were stopped until 12 noon local time, as reported by the Independent on February 28.
Data from the Flight Radar site shows a number of domestic flights to St Petersburg returning to their destination.
The shutdown also appears to affect flights on routes to Russia's Kaliningrad exclave, which requires aircraft to fly over St Petersburg.
The state-run TASS news agency said the airspace within a 200 km (124 miles) radius of Pulkovo had been closed until 13:20 local time, citing unnamed sources.
Later, Russia's Defense Ministry said it had carried out air defense exercises involving interceptor jets, leading to airport closures and flight shutdowns.
At 12.00 local time, the flight had returned to fly to St. Petersburg, while the plane began landing and took off at the airport.
In a statement issued about an hour after flights restarted, Russia's Defense Ministry said it had carried out exercises, involving the delivery of fighter jets, in Russia's western airspace.
"During training, air defense forces work to detect, intercept and identify targets, and interact with emergency services and law enforcement agencies," the ministry said.
It said several warplanes had carried out sudden attacks as part of previously unannounced drills, causing several flights to be diverted and airlines to reschedule their flight plans.
Separately, in a press conference after flights reopened, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov declined to comment on the cause of the one-hour disruption, but said President Vladimir Putin had received complete information about the situation.
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