By Tony O’Reilly-
Boris Johnson has said that the UK and NATO cannot cross a line that would require declaring a no fly zone against Russian jets flying in to dropp deadly bombs against Ukraine.
Mr Zelenskyy told Sky News’ that Western countries were being indecisive on the issue of “closing the skies” against what he called “the Nazis”, and said that if the bombings continue and over a million people die, the West will eventually close the skies.
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However, the prime minister, speaking to Sky News’ Beth Rigby Interviews programme, said the pair have had some “very frank conversations” but the UK and NATO cannot cross that line.
On Wednesday, Mr Zelenskyy told Sky News’ special correspondent Alex Crawford, in Kyiv, that Western countries were being indecisive on the issue of “closing the skies” against what he called “the Nazis”.
“If you are united against the Nazis and this terror, you have to close. Don’t wait for me ask you several times, a million times. Close the sky,” he said.
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However, Zelensky’s request is borne out of desperation, and overlooks the risk of a world war, which would be inevitable if NATO imposes a no fly zone.
The PM said: “We’ve had some very frank conversations and ones which have been deeply upsetting because there is a line beyond which, quite frankly, the UK and NATO would be deemed to be in direct conflict with Russia.
“It’s agonising, absolutely agonising. I’ve had this conversation at least a couple of times with Volodymyr but I think the difficulty is that it will require me to order RAF jets, UK pilots into the air with a mission to shoot down Russian fast jets.”
Today, the UK said it would ease its rigid entry requirements for Ukrainian refugees, meaning that those with passports can apply for entry online and only have to give biometric details when they are in the UK, Priti Patel has said.
Johnson also expressed fears Vladimir Putin may deploy chemical weapons in Ukraine, stressing Western officials’ fears after Moscow accused Kyiv of planning to deploy them in the battlefield.
“The stuff that you’re hearing about chemical weapons is straight out of their playbook,” he said.
“They start saying that there are chemical weapons that have been stored by their opponents or by the Americans.
“And so when they themselves deploy chemical weapons, as I fear they may, they have a sort of maskirovka – a fake story – ready to go.
“You’ve seen it in Syria. You saw it even in the UK. That’s what they’re already doing. It is a cynical, barbaric government.”
On Wednesday, Moscow said it had uncovered a military biological weapons programme in Ukraine involving deadly pathogens such as plague and anthrax and called on the US to explain the “Ukrainian biological weapons lab”.
The UK and the U.S believes the claim is propaganda, designed as a pretext for Russia to execute a lethal chemical and biological attack against Ukraine.
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