Some 50,000 Russian tourists remain in Middle Eastern countries as the regional conflict intensifies, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said at a briefing on March 4.

Dubai, Qatar and Iran have been popular destinations in recent years for Russians looking to escape cold winters in Moscow. The surprise war by Israel and the US has left thousands of tourists across the Persian Gulf trapped, with flight programmes either massively delayed or cancelled due to airspace closures.

"According to our estimates, and I want to stress these are very approximate figures, around 50,000 Russian tourists are in the region," Zakharova said.

The disruption follows the joint US-Israeli military operation against Iran that began on February 28 and Iran's retaliatory strikes on Israeli territory and US bases across the Gulf.

Zakharova clarified that the Ministry of Economic Development has not imposed an official ban on visits to the affected countries but urged Russians to stay away.

"We strongly recommend refraining from tourism travel to the UAE, Kuwait, Bahrain, Oman, Qatar and Saudi Arabia until active hostilities cease and air travel conditions are fully normalised," she said.

Russia's tourism industry is facing severe financial losses, with operators spending more than RUB500mn ($5.4mn) per day to support stranded tourists across the Gulf, the Russian Union of Travel Industry (RST) said.

Total costs for extended hotel stays, meals and transfers between February 28 and March 5 have exceeded RUB2.5bn ($27mn), according to the Association of Russian Tour Operators.

Around 20,000 of the estimated 23,000 Russian tourists in Gulf states are in the UAE, Russia's Ministry of Economic Development said. The Emirates is the most popular overseas holiday destination for Russian travellers, accounting for up to 30% of winter tourist traffic.

"This conflict will have an enormous negative impact on the tourism industry," said Dmitry Arutyunov, co-chair of the RST's outbound tourism committee and head of Art-Tour. He said operators were losing their highest-revenue dates, including the March 8 holiday period, school holidays and the May bank holidays.

Artour Muradyan, a board member of the RST and head of Space Travel, said the industry would not survive without government support. Arutyunov said the biggest challenge was the inability to plan, noting that while tours had already been sold for the May holiday period, it remained unclear whether travel to the region would resume.

The presence of Russian personnel at Iran's Bushehr nuclear power plant adds a further dimension to Moscow's concerns about the safety of its nationals in the region. Many Russian citizens who were in Iran have since left through Azerbaijan and Armenia.

The US State Department issued its own advisory on March 2 urging American citizens to leave 14 Middle Eastern countries "via commercial means due to serious safety risks," while the US embassy in the UAE evacuated all staff over fears of further attacks.