Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy (or Zelensky or Zelenskiy - the man himself apparently prefers Zelenskyy, and that's how it appears on his passport) is making a big song and dance about the fact that NATO will not impose a no-fly zone over Ukraine. Quoth he: "All the people who will die starting from today will also die because of you. Because of your weakness, because of your disunity."
Well, that's not why at all. That's just cheap and irresponsible rhetoric. Zelenskyy knows perfectly well that NATO is not able or willing to do that, because that would involve shooting down Russian planes, which would bring NATO into a full-blown war with Russia, aka World War 3. President Biden and NATO could just as easily retort to Zelenskyy, "If that results in a (nuclear) world war, then all the thousands (millions?) of additional deaths are on you". Hell, you could argue that the deaths of thousands of his people are Zelenskyy's personal responsibility because he is not willing to accede to Russia's four demands for a cease-fire, but no-one in doing that.
So, what about the whole no-fly zone issue? There has been a fair bit of misinformation (disinformation?) on the Ukrainian side, as well as the much more blatant and egregious fake news on Russia's part. For example, Ukraine has been broadcasting the (false) claim that the European Union - specifically Bulgaria, Poland and Slovakia, all of whom use the same Russian MiG-29s and SU-25s that the Ukrainian air force is familiar with - plan on donating as many as 70 planes for Ukraine's use. NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg has been very firm in his denials of any such plan, stressing that NATO can help with "materiel, anti-tank weapons, air defense systems and other types of military equipment", but is "not to be part of the conflict". So, there is clearly a qualitative difference between weapons and actual aircraft (is this laid out in statutes somewhere?), a difference that will not be crossed. For some reason, NATO countries can supply Ukraine with surface-to-air missiles and anti-tank missiles, but not airplanes, despite the search for creative solutions to get around the "rules".
Canada too has been firm in its vows to provide military equipment of all sorts, but to draw the line at sending actual planes. When challenged to say why, Trudeau explained that Canada's planes are not the same kinds of planes that Ukraine's air force is familiar with (although it seems to me that they would probably still welcome the chance to learn).
Two other factors also play into all this. One is that Ukraine probably already has enough planes; what it is short of is trained pilots. But also, what is interesting is that, although the Russian combat air force is an estimated 15 times the size of Ukraine's, for some reason that no-one quite understands, they have not chosen to use it to its full extent (some argue that Russian tactics are poor, and their execution incompetent), and much of the shelling that is decimating Ukraine's major cities is actually ground-launched.
Anyway, my point is that President Zelenskyy needs to be a bit more careful what he says. He has taken to shaming Western nations for their inaction, and accusing them of being ineffectual and scared of confronting Russia as Ukraine is doing, but he is missing the point by a huge margin. NATO countries are doing a lot of the work behind the scenes, and bad-mouthing and alienating them seems like a really bad idea. This is not a contentious or borderline opinion that might be subject to movement - all 30 members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization are in agreement, and it is not going to change.
Zelenskyy is basking in a a rock-star's adulation at the moment, but he needs to be sure not to abuse his elevated soapbox with disingenuous requests and complaints that would lead to a major escalation in the war, and make things overall much worse, not better. It's not all about you, Mr. Zelenskyy.
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