Former NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg has explained why NATO did not impose a no-fly zone over Ukraine at the start of Russia’s full invasion in 2022.
In his memoirs, the former NATO chief recalls the “painful moment” in February 2022, when he rejected President Volodymyr Zelensky’s request to introduce a no-fly zone over Ukraine.
Stoltenberg said he feared their conversation could have been the Ukrainian president’s last phone call, as the West feared for his life, the Telegraph reports.
“He called me from a bunker in Kiev with Russian tanks just up the road. And he said: ‘I accept that you are not sending NATO ground troops, although I disagree. But please close the airspace. Prevent Russian planes, drones and helicopters from flying and attacking us,'” he added.
Stoltenberg recalled that NATO had closed airspace over several countries to protect civilians in the past – for example, over Bosnia and Herzegovina and over northern Iraq, where it was necessary to protect the Kurds.
But in response to Zelensky’s request, the NATO Secretary General said no.
He explained that closing the airspace over Ukraine would have required NATO to destroy Russian air defense systems in Belarus and Russia, as Western fighter jets could not have operated safely in Ukraine if they were targeted by Russian missiles.
“And if there is a Russian plane or helicopter in the air, we have to shoot it down and then we are in full-scale war between NATO and Russia. And we are not ready to do that. As Biden, who was the US president at the time, said, we will not risk a third world war for Ukraine,” he stressed.
Stoltenberg added that the interruption of that phone call with Zelensky was “painful”, knowing that the Ukrainian president’s life was in danger. /Telegraph