[lazyjones]

Also, it sounds wrong that they can allegedly ban Belarusian planes from "European" skies, with Belarus being a country in Europe...

[simonh]

By European skies, they just mean the skies over the European Union. News articles routinely say Europe when they man the European Union. Sometimes confusingly, but I think the context is clear here.

[lazyjones]

It's clearly wrong, that it's pretty common to write it like that doesn't make it any better.