Zelenskyy knows that a No-Fly-Zone is both untenable tactically, and impossible politically. Surely, he knows all the arguments against, and also that it wouldn’t even work. Yet he keeps repeating it.
Of course, for Ukraine the war is already there, whether or not it will be called WW3 in the history books, so he has everything to gain and nothing to loose from draging NATO into the war at this stage. (Except that WW3 would presumably be vastly more destructive, especially for Ukraine if it becomes it’s first/major battleground. But the logic still holds.)
Yet he isn’t asking NATO to send troops, or bomb Moscow, or even to shoot down Russian planes; He asks specifically for the No-Fly-Zone. Repeatedly. It’s a vague but plausible-sounding request, that is abstract enough and hard enough to understand and far-mode enough that lot’s of people who wouldn’t call for WW3 will rally around this one, oddly specific, completely misplaced strategy as their rallying cry. I think the point is specifically what you bring up: To have the masses call for something the leaders of the west can’t and won’t do, meaning 1; that they have to scramble to do everything else that they CAN do to compensate, and 2; their own voters are giving them all the political leverage they need to pull it off, both domestically and geopolitically (“it” being everything short of WW3). I don’t think Zelenskyy expects to ever get that one specific thing, but he’s here to win the war, not to “close the skies” specifically.
Zelenskyy knows that a No-Fly-Zone is both untenable tactically, and impossible politically. Surely, he knows all the arguments against, and also that it wouldn’t even work. Yet he keeps repeating it.
Of course, for Ukraine the war is already there, whether or not it will be called WW3 in the history books, so he has everything to gain and nothing to loose from draging NATO into the war at this stage. (Except that WW3 would presumably be vastly more destructive, especially for Ukraine if it becomes it’s first/major battleground. But the logic still holds.)
Yet he isn’t asking NATO to send troops, or bomb Moscow, or even to shoot down Russian planes; He asks specifically for the No-Fly-Zone. Repeatedly. It’s a vague but plausible-sounding request, that is abstract enough and hard enough to understand and far-mode enough that lot’s of people who wouldn’t call for WW3 will rally around this one, oddly specific, completely misplaced strategy as their rallying cry. I think the point is specifically what you bring up: To have the masses call for something the leaders of the west can’t and won’t do, meaning 1; that they have to scramble to do everything else that they CAN do to compensate, and 2; their own voters are giving them all the political leverage they need to pull it off, both domestically and geopolitically (“it” being everything short of WW3). I don’t think Zelenskyy expects to ever get that one specific thing, but he’s here to win the war, not to “close the skies” specifically.
Idk, just a thought.