Any country or entity that imposes a no-fly zone over Ukraine would immediately be viewed by Russia as entering the Russia-Ukraine conflict, Russia’s president said March 5.
“Now we are hearing that a no-fly zone must be established over the territory of Ukraine,” Russian President Vladimir Putin said, adding that “any move in this direction will be viewed by us as a participation in the armed conflict of whichever side whose territory will pose a threat to our service members.”
“That very second, we will view them as participants of the military conflict and it would not matter what members they are,” Putin said, speaking to Aeroflot pilot trainees in the Moscow region.
After Russia invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24, Ukrainian officials urged outside parties to impose a no-fly zone over Ukraine.
Doing so would “protect the civilian population,” Petro Poroshenko, Ukraine’s former president, told reporters on Saturday. “We need it urgently, we need it now, just not allow Putin to destroy the whole world.”
But the United States and other North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) officials have refused, asserting they are not part of the war.
“We are not part of this conflict, and we have a responsibility to ensure it does not escalate and spread beyond Ukraine,” NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg told a news conference in Brussels on Friday.
“We understand the desperation but we also believe that if we did that, we would end up with something that could lead to a full-fledged war in Europe involving much more countries and much more suffering,” he added.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, in a separate briefing, said NATO members “have a responsibility to ensure that the war doesn’t spill over even beyond Ukraine.”
“The only way to actually implement something like a no fly zone is to send airplanes into Ukrainian airspace and to shoot down Russian planes, and that could lead to a full fledged war in, in Europe,” Blinken said.
U.S. President Joe Biden has said he does not want the United States to engage directly with Russia, provided Russian forces don’t attack any NATO members.
Putin also told the pilot trainees that Russia’s invasion was justified because some Russian-speaking persons were killed in Donbass, a portion of eastern Ukraine that has seen fighting in recent years, and because Ukraine wanted to build nuclear weapons. Ukrainian officials have said the invasion was unjustified and have accused Russian troops of committing war crimes.
“Our boys who are fighting there right now, putting their lives on the line; they put their lives on the line for our future, for our children’s future,” Putin said. “This is completely obvious.”
Putin also said that Western sanctions against Russia “appear similar to a declaration of war,” state media reported.
