Secretary of State Antony Blinken and U.K. Foreign Secretary Liz Truss again rejected calls for a no-fly zone over Ukraine, saying such a step could draw their countries and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization into a direct confrontation with Russia.
The top American and British diplomats said their governments would continue to exert diplomatic and economic pressure on Russia, while providing defensive weapons to Ukraine.
Ms. Truss said the U.K. government would bolster Ukraine’s air defenses by supplying Starstreak anti-aircraft missiles.
Mr. Blinken warned that the creation of a no-fly zone using NATO aircraft and personnel would “almost certainly” bring the alliance into the war.
“Our goal is to end the war, not to expand it—including perhaps to expand it to NATO territory,” he said.
The Polish government’s offer of MiG-29 fighter jets for use by Ukraine via transfer of the aircraft to a U.S. base in Germany could have serious implications for NATO, Mr. Blinken said. “We have to make sure that we’re doing it in the right way,” he said.
Citing the Pentagon’s statement yesterday that the specifics of the Polish proposal are untenable, Mr. Blinken said: “It’s not simply clear to us that there is a substantive rationale for doing it in the way that was put forward yesterday.”
As Ms. Truss and Mr. Blinken detailed the effects of existing sanctions on the Russian economy, Ms. Truss called for an intensification of the global response.
“We must go further and faster in our response. We must double down on our sanctions. That includes a full Swift ban, and the G-7 ending its use of Russian oil and gas,” she said.