NATO meeting in Brussels, 4 March. Despite the situation on the ground, NATO does not want to be directly involved in the conflict, including the creation of a no-fly zone. (Olivier Dulery/Poole/AFP/Getty Images)
30 NATO member countries met in Brussels on Friday to discuss the alliance’s next steps in Ukraine. Diplomatic efforts have failed to end the chaos in the country eight days after Vladimir Putin ordered Russian troops to invade.
The situation inside Ukraine is unlikely to improve in the near future. A 40-mile-long Russian convoy bound for the capital Kyiv has been stuck for days as Ukrainian fighters hold key areas while Russian forces take over other areas. key strategic areas are still occupied by the Zaporizhzhya NPP today.
Despite the bleak situation on the ground, NATO is unwilling to be directly involved in the conflict, including the establishment of a no-fly zone, in addition to supporting Ukraine’s resistance to an invasion that is killing innocent civilians.
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said on Friday that the no-fly zone over Ukraine is not being considered by the alliance. “We agreed that we should not have NATO aircraft operating over Ukrainian airspace or NATO troops on Ukrainian territory,” he said.
What is a no-fly zone? A no-fly zone is an area where certain aircraft cannot fly for a number of reasons. In the context of a conflict like that in Ukraine, this would probably mean a zone in which Russian aircraft were not allowed to fly, so that they do not launch airstrikes on Ukraine.
NATO has already introduced no-fly zones in non-NATO countries, including Bosnia and Libya. However, this is always a controversial move, because it means partial participation in the conflict without the full involvement of the ground forces.
What happens if NATO introduces a no-fly zone? The problem with military no-fly zones is that they must be enforced by military force. If a Russian aircraft flew into the NATO no-fly zone, NATO forces would have to take action against this aircraft. These measures may include shooting the aircraft from the sky. In the eyes of Russia, this would be an act of war on the part of NATO and would likely lead to an escalation of the conflict.
Why didn’t NATO introduce a no-fly zone? Neither Ukraine nor Russia are members of NATO. Russian President Vladimir Putin clearly sees NATO as a direct threat to his power and recently criticized its expansion towards Russia as a justification for his invasion of Ukraine.
As a result, NATO is extremely reluctant to get directly involved in the Ukraine conflict with a rival nuclear power. By supporting Ukraine’s resistance and recognizing Putin’s actions as an invasion of a sovereign country, the alliance is simply not prepared to do anything that could be construed as a direct act of war against Russia and risk an escalation that could lead to the use of nuclear weapons. weapon.
Why does Russia feel threatened by NATO? Putin has long believed that after the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia was at a disadvantage – what he called “the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the 20th century.”
He complained that NATO had expanded its borders over time to include the countries of Eastern Europe that were once part of the Soviet Union, meaning that Russia now shares a land border with the world’s largest military alliance, thereby diminishing its geopolitical power in that that was once Moscow’s Sphere of Influence.
Back in February, he demanded that NATO be reduced to its 1997 borders before the Baltic states of Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia, the last two of which border Russia, join the alliance.
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