General Article Ukraine war: why Nato is refusing to enforce a no-fly zone

Topic Selected: War and Conflict

Ukraine war: why Nato is refusing to enforce a no-fly zone

Christoph Bluth, University of Bradford

In the pre-war discussions between the US and Russia, Joe Biden warned Russia about the consequences of aggression, but explicitly excluded the possibility of the use of armed force by the United States. Now as Ukrainian civilians come under severe attack and refugees are pouring into other central European countries, the clamour for a military response from Nato is getting louder.

The Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelensky, has declared that the skies “needed to be closed over” – and a Ukrainian journalist confronted the UK prime minister Boris Johnson at a press conference issuing a tearful demand for western support to impose a no-fly zone over Ukraine – something Johnson rejected out of hand.

The obvious reason why the Ukrainians are desperate for a no-fly zone to be imposed is that it would limit Russia’s options to launch airstrikes on Ukraine’s cities. This despite the fact th...

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