Platov International Airport

Platov International Airport (ROV) is the main airport of Rostov-on-Don and the wider southern Russia region, opened in December 2017 to replace the ageing in-city Rostov Airport (RVI). Located about 18 mi (29 km) northeast of the city near Grushevskaya, it is the first wholly new greenfield commercial airport built in post-Soviet Russia and was delivered in time to host matches during the 2018 FIFA World Cup. The airport features a single 11,811 ft (3,600 m) asphalt runway engineered for widebody operations and a striking terminal by Twelve Architects arranged around a crane-themed central atrium evoking Cossack folk art. Before the February 2022 invasion of Ukraine, ROV handled more than 3 million passengers a year, operating as a Rossiya, Azimuth and S7 base with scheduled links across Russia, the CIS, Turkey, the UAE and a growing European network. The nearby Russia–Ukraine frontier has meant that the airport has been closed to civil traffic since the start of the conflict, with airspace restrictions covering southern Russia. On Russian aviation league tables ROV ranks among the top twenty airports by pre-war passenger volume and is the principal gateway to the Southern Federal District, including the Don, Kuban and North Caucasus regions and the Sochi–Krasnodar resort corridor via ground connections. Its strategic value is amplified by its proximity to the Sea of Azov ports, industrial Rostov, and the Volga–Don transport artery, and it is expected to be one of the first Russian airports restored to commercial operation once southern airspace restrictions are lifted.