CHISINAU, Moldova (AFP) — The national air carrier of ex-Soviet Moldova announced Friday that it will resume flights to Russia after services were halted for several months due to Moscow's invasion of neighboring Ukraine.

"The airline Air Moldova will resume the operation of flights to Moscow starting October 1, after their interruption from February 2022," the airline said in a statement.

The decision comes following "countless requests from citizens of the Republic of Moldova" living in Russia and "passengers' requests to use tickets purchased during the pandemic," it added.

Before the Russian invasion, Air Moldova ran routes to Russia's capital, its second city Saint Petersburg and the city of Krasnodar in the south.

The company did not specify whether flights would be resuming to the two other airports.

Moldova closed the country's airspace on 24 February, the same day Russian troops entered Ukraine, Moldova's neighbor to the east. It was reopened on 21 March.

Moldova, a country of 2.6 million people wedged between Romania and Ukraine, was in late June granted European Union candidate status.

However, the process of its accession to the bloc could take many years.

Ukrainian counter-offensive

Meanwhile, Ukraine said its forces made gains in the north, the south and the east, prying back land seized by Russia which had hoped for a swift victory when it attacked nearly seven months ago.

"Our heroes have already liberated dozens of settlements. And today this movement continued," Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky said in an address to the nation on Thursday.

"In total, more than a thousand square kilometers have been liberated since September 1," he said shortly after announcing the recapture of Balakliya in the eastern Kharkiv region, a town which fell to Russian forces in early March.