It probably is always like that. Who wants to fly into the country, and what airline would be crazy enough to route a flight over the country?
Probably so. I was on a flight from Newark to New Delhi a year ago. It passed north of Norway on the great circle route, which also passes over the region of the Ukraine where the Russian shot down a passenger airliner last year. When we got near this area, the airplane took an abrupt right turn, avoided the dangerous air space, then turned back to the path to New Delhi. This departure probably added an additional hour to an already very long flight.
No radar data a available for that area.