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-scale invasion in 2022...
In his memoir, the former NATO chief recalls the "painful moment" in February 2022 when he rejected President Volodymyr Zelenskyy's desperate plea to introduce a no-fly zone over Ukraine.
Stoltenberg said he was afraid their conversation might have been the Ukrainian president's last phone call, as the West feared for his life.
"He called me from a bunker in Kyiv with Russian tanks just up the road. And he said: 'I accept you're not sending in NATO ground troops, though I disagree. But please close the airspace. Prevent the Russian planes, drones and helicopters from flying and attacking us.'"
Stoltenberg recalled that NATO had closed the airspace over certain 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.
He explained that closing the airspace over Ukraine would have required NATO to destroy Russian air defence systems in Belarus and Russia, since Western fighter jets could not have operated safely in Ukraine if they were being 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 war between NATO and Russia. And we're not willing to do that. As Biden, who was US president at the time, put it, we will not risk a third world war for Ukraine."
Stoltenberg added that ending that phone call with Zelenskyy was "painful", knowing the Ukrainian president's life was in danger."
***
That's why Trump is evolution rather than negation of Biden.
No comments:
Post a Comment