Luxembourg’s foreign minister has warned Ukraine not to make a no-fly zone. In the meeting of foreign ministers of NATO countries, he said that if he does so, he may have to face serious consequences.
In the midst of the ongoing Russian attack in many important cities of Ukraine, the officials of European countries and NATO are constantly meeting. The issue of declaring Ukraine a no-fly zone also arose during the meeting of foreign ministers of NATO countries on Friday. Opposing this demand, Luxembourg’s Foreign Minister Jean Aselborn said that this would further inflame the dispute.
Aselborn said, “Who will enforce the no-fly zone?” He warned that if NATO intervened in the Ukraine war, its consequences could be dire. During a conversation with fellow foreign ministers, Aselborn said, “I think our feet should remain on the ground.”
Prior to Asselborn’s statements, Spanish Foreign Minister Khoise Manuel Albares had said that the issue of no fly zone will be discussed during the meeting of the Foreign Minister of NATO. The Ukrainian president and several leaders have also been demanding that Ukraine be declared a no-fly zone to weaken the Russian offensive.
what is no fly zone
A No Fly Zone (NFZ) is an area over which aircraft are prohibited from flying. Usually this is done for security reasons. In a peaceful environment, during important events, many countries declare a particular area or city as NFZ.
On the other hand, no fly zone becomes a very sensitive issue in military conflict. Fighter aircraft of the country or organization that has declared a no-fly zone, monitor the NFZ area. If another aircraft enters the no-fly zone, it can be forcibly lowered or shot down. During the conflict in Iraq and Bosnia in the 1990s, these countries were declared no-fly zones. For some time in recent years, eastern Ukraine, Syria and Libya have been declared no-fly zones.
But declaring the whole of Ukraine as a no-fly zone means a direct confrontation with Russia. If NATO declares Ukraine a no-fly zone, it will have to fly its fighter jets over Ukraine for surveillance. And during this, NATO will face Russian planes and helicopters directly. This is the reason why all the leaders of NATO, including British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, are categorically refusing to declare Ukraine a no-fly zone.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has already warned that if a third country jumps into this conflict, it will see the worst phase in its history.
“No role of Belarus in Ukraine dispute”
Meanwhile, Belarus’ President Alexander Lukashenko, who is facing pressure for supporting Russia, said on Friday, addressing the country through state media, “The Belarusian army has not participated in special operations and has no plans to take part in it any further.” Not intended.” Ukraine shares its northern border with Belarus. There is a 1,084 km long border between the two countries.
Just before the Russian army entered Ukraine, Lukashenko visited Moscow and met with the Russian President. In February, there was a large gathering of Russian forces in Belarus, which at the time was described as a normal military exercise. Later Russian army also entered Ukraine from Belarus side.
“You have nothing to worry about,” Lukashenko told the Belarusian public amid a fierce military conflict in the neighbourhood. Western military experts call 67-year-old Lukashenko a puppet of Putin. The Belarusian president is accused of helping Russian forces in the Ukraine war. Addressing the public, Lukashenko also said that every effort is being made to drag Belarus into the Ukrainian conflict.
Lukashenko, who has been in office since July 20, 1994, is also called the last dictator of Europe. It is not hidden from anyone that Lukashenko provided a safe haven in Belarus to Russian planes, helicopters and missiles entering Ukraine. Along with this, Belarus has repeatedly presented itself as a host for talks between Russian and Ukrainian officials.
The Ukrainian government claims that at one time the Belarusian army was either fighting or preparing to fight in their country.
How much preparation has Putin prepared to deal with NATO and European Union sanctions?
The attack on Ukraine has alienated the Russian president but he doesn’t seem to care. Experts of international politics are telling this situation as their choice. This may strengthen his position in domestic politics.
Russian attack on Ukraine turns America and its allies against Russia
Immediately agreed to the package of “disastrous” sanctions. Leaders of NATO, the European Union and the G7 condemned the attack and blamed Russia for it.
Putin indifferent to sanctions
“Putin is now seen as the closest threat to our Western liberal-market democracy system,” says Timothy Ashe, emerging markets strategist at Bluebay Asset Management. Aish also says that Western leaders are feeling “absolutely disappointed and threatened by Putin”. Putin has made himself the “number one untouchable” for Western countries.
The president and CEO of the think tank International Crisis Group, Comfort Iro, says the outcome is very likely to leave Russia financially isolated for a long period of time.
In 2014, when Russia annexed Crimea from Ukraine and annexed it, a period of sanctions had started on it. After this, after poisoning Alexei Navalny, a critic of the Russian President, in 2020, this trend went further. However, the world has not seen whether all these sanctions had any effect on the Russian President.
preparation in advance
“For almost a year and a half, the Kremlin has been actively preparing that Western countries will impose more stringent sanctions,” says Tatyana Stanovaya, founder of political analysis organization R Politik. According to Stanovaya, for Putin, “the goal of the sanctions is not to deter Russia’s aggression from aggression, but to stifle Russia’s development.” Along with this, he also said that Putin expects a long war with Western countries.
Western countries have already announced some sanctions and what remains is to separate Russia from the global payment system SWIFT. However, US President Joe Biden said on Thursday that Europe has not yet decided on this step. The Russian President has made a lot of preparations in Russia to avoid this apprehension. Especially by increasing the reserves of foreign exchange, they want to remove this fear from their mind. At present, Russia has foreign exchange reserves of about $ 640 billion.
“Huge currency reserves, rising oil prices and a low debt-to-GDP ratio will protect Russia from imminent sanctions…however, in the long run, they will cause economic inertia in the country,” says Oleg Ignatov, a Russia expert at the International Crisis Group. Will come.”
big energy store
Russia is one of the largest producer of crude oil in the world. After 2014, it has made a lot of progress in this direction and after the attack it has reached a level where it has never been before. For the past several weeks, the supply of gas coming from the pipeline between Russia and Poland was decreasing but on Friday it suddenly increased four times. Aish pointed to the sharp fall in the Russian stock market on Thursday, saying that heavy sanctions would make Russia “an untouchable in the global market and not worth investing in”.
The Kremlin, the office of the Russian president, says it had foreseen the situation. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters, “All necessary measures have already been taken to keep this emotional moment as immediate as possible.” Peskov also tried to downplay diplomatic influence. “Of course we will have problems with some countries, but we are already facing problems with these countries,” Peskov says.
In fact, it seems that Putin’s Russia is trying to shake the very foundations of international security. “This is not just a European security crisis. The consequences of this war will be difficult and long lasting for global security as well,” says Comfort Iro. Alexander Bunov, senior fellow at the Carnegie Moscow Center, says that naturally Russia will become untouchable for a long time and that the longer its campaign in Ukraine, “the more Russia’s economic contacts and relations with other countries deteriorate.”
Crisis Companions for Russia
From the West, diplomatically and economically, “untouchables” Putin can move to countries like China and Iran. These two countries have not yet condemned Russia, Iran has called for a ceasefire and a political solution. Pakistan’s Prime Minister Imran Khan was in Moscow when Ukraine was attacked on Thursday. This was the first visit by a Pakistani prime minister to Russia in the past several decades.
China says it understands Russia’s “legitimate concerns on security matters” regarding Ukraine. When countries of the world are breaking economic ties with Russia and imposing sanctions, at the same time China has approved the import of wheat from Russia. Earlier these imports were banned on the grounds that they have mildew and other problems. Iran says NATO provocations are at the root of the current “Ukraine problem”. The world knows the condition of relations between America and Iran. If the nuclear deal is not agreed again, it is not difficult to understand where Iran will go.
The Russian President is also expecting cooperation from India in the United Nations. The Prime Minister of India spoke to Putin on the phone on Thursday and asked him to stop military operations in Ukraine. However, India has neither condemned this move of Russia nor has spoken of any impact due to it on relations in future.
Belarus is allowing its land to be used in this attack and Kazakhstan has also supported Russia. It is clear that as much as the Western countries, America and their allies are calling it a one-sided matter, it is not so much. Putin, on the other hand, has been preparing himself and the country for these situations for a long time. In such a situation, even threatening the use of nuclear weapons by coming on TV does not surprise the world anymore. It seems that he has accepted that he is now alone in the world.
