What is a no-fly zone?
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- Ukrainian President urged to impose a no-fly zone over his country. The obvious reason why the Ukrainians are desperate for a no-fly zone to be imposed is that it would limit Russia’s options to launch airstrikes on Ukraine’s cities. But the United States and NATO allies refused.
- What exactly is a no-fly zone? It is a ban on all or specific types of aircraft flying through designated airspace. According to US and NATO officials, any attempt to establish a no-fly zone would mean to be prepared to shoot down any Russian aircraft. It will bring them into direct conflict with nuclear-armed Russia, resulting in a full-fledged war in Europe, involving many more countries and causing far more human suffering.
- So far, the war in Ukraine has not depended heavily on airpower on either side. Russia has relied mostly on missiles and surface artillery fire to attack Ukrainian targets.
- No-fly zones are often established around important government buildings like the White House in the US.
- From 1991 to 2003, the United States, France, and Britain enforced no-fly zones over Iraq in the wake of the 1991 Gulf War to protect Shiite populations in the south and minority Kurds in the north from air attacks by Saddam Hussein’s Sunni government.
- From 1993-to 1995, NATO enforced an UN-declared NFZ over Bosnia.
- And in 2011, NATO also enforced an UN-approved NFZ over Libya during that country’s civil war.
Source: The Guardian