How a No-Fly Zone Could Save Ukraine
Russia’s brazen drone incursions into Poland and Romania demand a NATO response in the skies.
Damage from a Russian missile in Kyiv.
Photographer: Ori Aviram/AFP/Getty Images
For more than three years, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has been desperately pleading for Western allies to “close the skies” over his nation. The Russians have launched wave after wave of increasingly capable drones, manned bombers and cruise missiles, including the hypersonic Iskander that hit the government’s headquarters in Kyiv last week.
The Kremlin has long drawn on its playbook from past wars in Chechnya and Syria: brutal bombing campaigns that do not discriminate between legitimate military targets and civilian population centers. President Vladimir Putin’s objective is to break the will of the Ukrainians. Despite his brutal tactics, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization has refused to establish a no-fly zone over Ukraine.