The former NATO Secretary General, Jens Stoltenberg, spoke about a complicated moment at the beginning of the Russian invasion in Ukraine, when NATO refused to impose a no-fly zone over Ukraine, despite the requests of President Zelenski. Stoltenberg says, in a statement from his memoirs, quoted by The Sunday Times, that Zelenski called him from a bunker in Kiev to ask for this.
In his memoirs, the former NATO chief remembers the “painful moment” in February 2022 when he rejected the desperate request of Volodimir Zelenski to impose a no-fly zone in Ukraine.
Stoltenberg also said that he feared that this conversation could have been the last with Volodimir Zelenski and that the West was afraid for the life of the Ukrainian president.
“He called me from a bunker in Kiev, when Russian tanks were across the street. He told me – ‘I can accept that you don’t send NATO ground troops, even though I disagree. But at least close the airspace. Stop the planes, drones, and Russian helicopters from flying and attacking us'”, the former NATO Secretary General recounted.
Stoltenberg also remembered that NATO had previously closed airspace over certain countries during past conflicts – for example in Bosnia or Iraq. But in response to Zelenski, Stoltenberg said it was not possible.
Zelenski even gave the example of Bosnia during the war in Yugoslavia, to support his request to Stoltenberg.
He explained to the Ukrainian president that closing the airspace in Ukraine would have required NATO to attack and destroy the air defense systems in Belarus and Russia, because otherwise Western fighter planes would not have been able to operate safely in Ukraine, being targeted by Russian missiles.
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