Photo: STATE EMERGENCY SERVICE OF UKRAINE HANDOUT/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock
“Ukrainian women and Ukrainian children are in deep fear because of bombs and missiles, which are going from the sky. And Ukrainian people are desperately asking for the West to protect our sky,“Daria Kaleniuk told Johnson, who was in Warsaw for talks with Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki. “We are asking for the no-fly zone.”
Johnson’s response to Kaleniuk, the executive director of theAnti-Corruption Action Centre, represents the complex and difficult position of Western countries firmly aligned againstVladimir Putinand theRussian invasion of Ukraine.
“I just want to say I am acutely conscious that there is not enough we can do as the U.K. government to help in the way that you want. I’ve got to be honest about that,” Johnson said. “Unfortunately, the implication of that is that the U.K. would be engaged in shooting down Russian planes, engaged in direct combat with Russia. That’s not something we can do, or we have envisaged.”
So far, the country’s Western allies have inflicted crippling sanctions on Russia and provided aid, but have not offered military assistance from their own armed forces to Ukraine.
PresidentJoe Bidenhas vowed thatU.S. troops will not fight in Ukraine, tellingNBC Newsearlier this month: “That’s a world war, when Americans and Russia start shooting at one another.”
Zelenskyy, meanwhile, has applauded the sanctions — but he says the country needs more.
“The sanctions are heading in the right direction. In addition to disconnecting the Russian Central Bank from SWIFT and providing more Stingers and anti-tank weapons, we need the West to impose a no-fly zone over significant parts of Ukraine,“Zelensky told Axiosin a statement. “Ukraine can beat the aggressor. We are proving this to the world. But our allies must also do their part.”
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.Presidency of Ukraine/Handout/Anadolu Agency/Getty
“So that’s a no on that?” Welker pushed.
“Those are all the reasons why that’s not a good idea.”
Also on Monday, Psaki addressed the option of a no-fly zone again. Though she reiterated that “the President has been very clear that he is not intending to send U.S. troops to fight a war with Russia,” she did not completely rule it out.
“A no-fly zone would require implementation,” Psaki said during the daily press briefing. “It would require deploying U.S. military to enforce, which would be a direct conflict — potentially a direct conflict and potentially war with Russia, which is something we are not planning to be a part of.”
Courtesy toska husted
Russia’s attack on Ukraine continues after the country invaded Thursday, with forces moving from the north, south and east.
Thousands more people have fled or tried to escape Ukraine amidwarnings of a possible “refugee crisis.”
“You don’t know where to go, where to run, who you have to call,” Liliya Marynchak, a 45-year-old teacher in Ivano-Frankivsk, Ukraine,told PEOPLE recentlyof the moment her city was bombed.
“This is just panic,” she said.
Various countries have pledged aid or military support to Ukraine, whose president called for peace talks — since seemingly stalled — while urging his country to resist.
Putin insists Ukraine has historic ties to Russia and he is acting in the interest of so-called “peacekeeping.”
“The prayers of the entire world are with the people of Ukraine,” Biden said as the invasion began in force last week.
source: people.com
