White House press secretary Jen Psaki told reporters that the United States won’t be implementing the requested no-fly zone in Ukraine due to the danger of being pulled into an all-out world war.
QUICK FACTS:
The White House is standing firm that the United States will not impose a no-fly zone over Ukraine, according to The Epoch Times.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has made another appeal for assistance to both chambers of Congress asking the United States to move to help Ukraine’s civilians.
White House press secretary Jen Psaki said that the White House has no interest in getting involved in a conflict that could lead to “World War III.”
Zelensky even appealed to America’s status as a world leader and Biden as the president, saying that being a world leader means being “the leader of peace.”
When asked whether the White House considered there to be a difference between a humanitarian no-fly zone and a blanket no-fly zone Psaki indicated that they believed there was a risk of war with both.
“We are not interested in getting into World War III,” @PressSec Jen Psaki said.
“We are in very close touch with the Ukrainians. Nothing that he asked for or said today was a surprise in that sense. If we were President Zelensky, we would be asking for everything possible as well,” Psaki told reporters. “He is watching his country and his people be attacked and brutalized by President Putin and the Russian military.”
“But, how President Biden makes decisions is through the prism of our own national security and as we have said before, a no-fly zone would require implementation, it would require us potentially shooting down Russian planes, NATO shooting down Russian planes, and we are not interested in getting into World War III,” she went on to say.
“There have been descriptions of both of those over the past couple of weeks,” Psaki said of the potential humanitarian no-fly zones. “In our view, and in the view of the military, there’s not a difference in terms of the implementation and the escalatory impact.”
BACKGROUND:
The White House previously denied requests from Zelensky to implement a no-fly zone, also citing the likely hood of it drawing the United States into a war, according to The Washington Times.
However, the same press conference saw the Biden Administration downplaying the possibility that America would cut itself off from Russian oil.
Both of which are issues thought likely to be persistent due to the lack of signs of de-escalation seen from Russia, according to Reuters.
