Ukraine pledges funds to keep airspace open amid Russia standoff

Ukraine pledged funds on Sunday to try to keep its airspace open to commercial flights, as some carriers reviewed their services to the country after the United States warned that Russia could invade at any time. Dutch airline KLM - part of Air France - said it would stop services to Ukraine and Lufthansa said it was considering suspending flights. Two third of the 298 passengers killed when Malaysia Airlines MH17 was shot down over eastern Ukraine in 2014 as it flew from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur were Dutch citizens. Ukraine's infrastructure ministry said airlines were continuing to operate "without any restrictions", and PM Denys Shmygal said the government had allocated 16.6b hryvnia ($592m) to guarantee the continuation of flights through its airspace. He said the funds would "ensure flight safety in Ukraine for insurance and leasing companies." "This decision will stabilise the situation on the market of passenger air transportation and will guarantee the return to Ukraine of our citizens who are currently abroad," he said, without specifying how the funds would be allocated. Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to the Ukrainian president's chief of staff, earlier said he saw no point closing its airspace in response to Moscow's troop build-up. Scheduling reconfigurations by individual carriers had "nothing to do with the decisions or policies of our state," he told Reuters. "The most important point is that Ukraine itself sees no point in closing the sky ... And, in my opinion, that would somewhat resemble a kind of partial blockade."<br/>