No-fly zone: What does it mean and what are its implications for the Russian-Ukrainian conflict?

Ukraine's President Volodomir Zelensky continues to urge the West to take stronger measures against the Russian invasion. In addition to the sanctions and military arms shipments by European countries, Zelensky is calling on the EU-27 and the US to establish a no-fly zone in Ukraine to stop Russian bombing.

These demands come at a time when the Ukrainian city of Mariupol is under terrible siege. The city's 400,000 inhabitants are now living with Russian bombs, heating cuts and no electricity. This situation has left shocking images such as the creation of mass graves where the bodies of dead civilians are being buried.

However, both NATO and the United States have rejected this measure as it would mean taking an important, even decisive, step in the military escalation. What is the real meaning and implications of the decision to adopt a no-fly zone and why does the West refuse it?

Adopting a no-fly zone means that aircraft cannot fly over this area, necessarily forbidding them access. This would entail the use of military means, which would involve anti-aircraft defences, surveillance systems and aircraft to neutralise aircraft crossing the declared no-fly zone.

Thus, if NATO decided to implement a no-fly zone over Ukraine, the Alliance would have to intercept by military means any Russian aircraft flying over the area, which would increase the risk of the conflict taking on a global character.

Zelensky has continued to demand that Western countries approve this measure: "If (Western countries) are united against Nazism and against this terror, they should close (Ukraine's airspace). Don't wait for me to ask you so many times, millions of times. Close the sky", he declared. Despite this, the West's response has not been positive.

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg told the Ottawa Conference on Security and Defence that this decision was "painful" but was taken in order to "avoid all-out war" with Moscow. 

He noted that imposing this zone would necessarily require direct confrontation with Russia and said that in the event of a Russian incursion, the Alliance would have to "massively" attack Russian air defences in Ukraine, Russia and Belarus, which would result in "all-out war". 

Stoltenberg noted that "this will significantly escalate the war in Ukraine. But it also of course risks an all-out war in Europe, with NATO members'. 

When a decision is taken to approve a no-fly zone, it immediately establishes a ban on the overflight of certain aircraft. This establishment can be decreed voluntarily by the authorities of a country with the aim of protecting sensitive areas or areas under attack. 

From a military perspective, its approval implies the defence of the area, aerial surveillance and direct attack on aircraft that have crossed the air borders, which would respond to an action framed within the framework of a military conflict.

In order to put it into operation, it is necessary to deploy military means involving the deployment of anti-aircraft defence systems, surveillance systems and fighter aircraft with the capacity to neutralise the targets.

This measure began to be adopted after the Cold War, in the 1990s, and brought with it the parallel development of the use of satellites and radar, necessary to ensure compliance with the air veto. 

Its adoption began to be implemented in countries such as Iraq, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Libya. In Iraq after the first Gulf War, the US, UK and France agreed to create a no-fly zone above the 36th parallel to defend the Kurdish people from bombing.

Subsequently, the US decided to extend the zone below the 32nd parallel and then to the 33rd parallel. This zone was maintained until 1996 and until 2003 at the 33rd parallel.

In the case of Bosnia, although the UN Security Council established an exclusion zone that was maintained until 1995, it did not manage to prevent the bombings or the tragedies that took place in the siege of Sarajevo or the massacre of civilians in Srebrenica.

In Libya, on the other hand, a no-fly zone was established after the outbreak of civil war in 2011. The purpose of its approval was to safeguard the civilian population from the air strikes being carried out by Gaddafi's air forces. The exclusion, approved by the Security Council, was maintained until October of the same year, until the death of the Libyan dictator.