The Daily Signal - Should America Enact a No-Fly Zone in Ukraine?

Episode Date: March 16, 2022

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy gave a speech in front of Congress today. Zelenskyy urged America to continue supporting Ukraine as Russian forces march their way through the country. He also encouraged America to enact a no-fly zone around Ukraine to stop Russian terror in the skies. But what is a no-fly zone? And is it a good idea?   Heritage Foundation Research Associate for Russia and Eurasia Alexis Mrachek joins this bonus episode of The Daily Signal Podcast to discuss what a no-fly zone would entail, as well as dissect the rest of Zelenskyy’s speech.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey there, Daily Signal listeners, Doug Blair here, joining you for a very special bonus episode of the Daily Signal podcast. Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky just addressed the U.S. Congress, asking for continued support against the Russian invasion still ongoing in Ukraine. We have Heritage Foundation expert Alexis Marachic here to discuss what exactly that speech entailed, what he wants from America, and what the future holds for the Ukrainian people. You don't want to miss it. Stay tuned. My guest today is Alexis Marachic, a research associate for Russia and Eurasia here at the Heritage Foundation. Alexis, welcome to the show. Thanks for having me on.

Ukrainian president Volodemir Zelenskyy delivered a speech to Congress about the ongoing situation in Ukraine. So I'm assuming you listen to it. And what were your impressions of that speech? Yeah, it was about a 15 to 20 minute address to Congress. And it was amazing at the beginning because he received not a standing ovation, but collapse from everyone in the audience for probably, two minutes straight. And it was just extremely moving. I think everyone is impressed by how Zelensky is handling this situation. But yeah, overall, I would say he gave a really great address. Of course, he was appealing to the emotions of Americans. He was mentioning Mount Rushmore and then Pearl Harbor,

9-11. The I Have a Dream speech given by MLK Jr., of course. So he's, you know, whoever wrote his speech did a great job in diving into American history, trying to, you know, make it on a basis that we all understand, of course. And he's saying, you know, Americans stand for for freedom and democracy. And this is exactly what Ukrainians want. And so I think he did a great job. There are some other things mentioned in speech that I don't fully agree with. But overall, I think he did really well for what he could have. Well, let's get into the meat of that. There were some active calls for policy from the United States, from Zelensky, one of those things was a no-fly zone. We've heard a lot about no-fly zones in the last couple of weeks about whether or not we should

institute one, but for maybe our listeners who aren't aware, what is a no-fly zone exactly? So what Zelensky is calling for is a snow fly zone, which essentially means that it would mean that we're preventing Russia from flying over Ukraine, bombing these department buildings, preventing them from, you know, hurting civilians like we have all these civilians being injured and killed on the ground and for no reason. And even these, you know, hospitals, schools are being bombed for no clear reason because these have nothing to do with the Ukrainian military. And it sounds great in theory a no-fly zone. But when you get down to the logistics of it all, how the U.S. would need to be involved militarily just does not make logical sense. So basically we would have to be prepared to shoot down Russian pilots, and Russian pilots would

likely be shooting down American pilots. And so already that's basically an active war against Russia from the United States. And then we would also have to have search and rescue on the ground to rescue those American pilots who are being downed. And so basically we don't want to start a World War III. That scenario doesn't exactly start a World War III, but it does give the potential for it. And so a lot of Americans, when they hear no-fly zone, it sounds great in theory, but then when they actually hear, oh, it would mean we're essentially going to war with Russia, they are much more opposed to the idea. And there's no way to empower the Ukrainians to enforce their own no-fly zone.

Like, you know, members of Congress have been calling on us to provide weaponry to Ukraine. Would that be a way to enforce a no-fly zone? It wouldn't be able to enforce a no-fly zone. But, of course, weaponry provided by the United States is greatly aiding the Ukrainians. I don't think Ukraine would be as successful as it is now without weaponry from the United States, the United Kingdom, Turkey, from several European nations. For example, these javelin anti-tank missiles are blowing up Russian tanks. And they're amazing because these javelin missiles are fired from your shoulder and they have infrared tips. And they are able to navigate in the air to exactly target a Russian tank from the top of the tank, which is the most vulnerable part of a tank.

And so they're incredible. United Kingdom, they've been sending in-laws, which are similar missiles to javelins, but they don't have that infrared tip. So they're not quite as good, but it's really good that the United Kingdom is also sending these over to Ukraine. And then stingers, which are provided by the United States, they also have this infrared tip. And these are targeted at Russian aircraft, and they're able to basically blow them up, make him explode. And so these are also making the Ukrainian military very successful. So, no, these wouldn't be able to enforce a no-fly zone, but the United States needs to keep sending as much weaponry as we can over to Ukraine.

In addition to providing more weaponry and arms to the Ukrainian, Zelensky called on the United States to continue sanctions, which has been something the United States and its allies have been doing to sort of select Russian targets, select Russian businesses. Is that something we should be continuing? I think definitely a ton of American businesses have already been pulling out in recent weeks. I think not that many remain there. We saw, I think it was just last week that McDonald's pulled out. And that company specifically is significant because it was the first one to make its way into the Soviet Union in 1990, signaling an opening to the West that the Soviet Union was breaking down and that Russians were wanting to experience the West and all these things. Now McDonald's is suspending operations. I mean, maybe they'll start back up in the future, but for the foreseeable future, they won't be doing business there.

And then, you know, of course, the United States has imposed all these sanctions on, you know, cutting Russian banks out of Swift and sanctioning oligarchs and sanctioning the Nord Stream 2 pipeline. But I think really to punish Russia for what it's doing, we should be sanctioning Russia as much as we can. And I think we have a few more sanctions left in our back pocket. I don't really know what President Biden is waiting for. I mean, I don't know if he wants the whole capital of Kiev to be blown up. I mean, I don't think that that's a reason to wait to impose these sanctions. I think it needs to happen immediately. How effective have these sanctions been so far?

It's difficult for people who are just watching the news and watching these images come in to see the impact that sanctions are having. So have they been working at affecting the Russian economy? Absolutely. In just the past week or two, the Russian economy has been absolutely plummeting. It's estimated now that the Russian ruble is worth less than the American penny now, which is just crazy to think about. I mean, we rarely use American pennies in our own economy now. And just to have that picture is crazy. And all these American businesses have been pulling out.

It's estimated, I think, that the Russian economy will have a 15% downturn this year. I think the economy there will be affected for years to come. And honestly, I feel bad for the Russian people because this is affecting them severely. And they're not the ones who created this war. It was Putin. But Putin's the one to blame here. He's the one who started this war and all these sanctions are being imposed because of him. There was a part of Zelensky's speech that I found very interesting where he says to Biden at the very end,

you are the leader of the nation, of your great nation. I wish you to be the leader of the world. being the leader of the world means to be the leader of peace. What are your thoughts about that statement? I think it's a very good statement. I think it just goes to show that President Biden isn't a perfect leader. And of course, we saw the failed Afghanistan pull out last August. And President Biden was showing a good amount of weakness last year.

I think a lot more could have been done on his side proactively in response to this Russian military buildup. Because Russia was building up its troops along the Ukrainian border. since April of last year. So it was almost a year after that that Russia launched the second invasion of Ukraine. I think it's really just an appeal from Zelensky to President Biden to be a strong leader, to keep imposing sanctions like he has been in recent weeks, to keep sending weaponry and defensive military aid, to be helping with humanitarian assistance, which I think, objectively speaking, the United States has done a fairly good job on in the past few weeks. So I think Zelensky is really just continuing to call for this.

I don't think we will impose the no-fly zone. But other than that, I think the United States should do whatever it can to help Ukraine. That actually does bring up an interesting point because Zelensky's goals here for this speech were clearly to maintain a free, independent Ukraine. How does that mesh with America's foreign policy and how willing are we to go to maintain that goal for him? That's a good question. I don't know exactly how far we're willing to go, but I think the important thing to remember here is that Ukrainians, they are free people. They've been having a developing democracy over the last several years. They want freedom.

They want to align with the West in general. You know, now their application to join the EU has been, they formally applied for this membership. They, I think, still want to join NATO in the future. I don't think that would happen anytime soon, of course. But it's just important to remember that Ukraine, if it's up to Ukraine to want NATO and EU membership, it's not our right to say, oh, you shouldn't get EU membership or you shouldn't get NATO membership. It's up to any country, including Ukraine, to decide for themselves whether they want to join alliances like this in the future. And so I think it's really just a matter of remembering that and that, you know, these Ukrainians, they did not provoke this war from Russia. and they have every right to align with the West in the future if they so desire.

Speaking of alliances, it's really interesting that you brought that up because the EU and NATO are currently existing alliances between European states. But Zelensky called for new alliances. What does that mean? What does that look like? That's a great question. I don't know exactly. I don't think it would mean the creation of a new organization such as NATO. I mean, NATO's been around since just a few years after World War II.

And then, of course, the EU has been around for decades. So I don't think he means that exactly. Maybe he means other countries in the world that aren't in Europe coming to the aid of Ukraine and being an alliance perhaps with EU and or NATO countries. So, yeah, I don't know. Hopefully he can elaborate on that in the future because I think that is an interesting point to bring up. Is there any type of alliance that would make sense from a perspective of Ukraine being the sort of central hub against Russia? Would it be sort of like an anti-Warsaw pact or something along those lines?

Yeah, perhaps. I mean, I think that any alliance and support of Ukraine would be a great thing, especially with, you know, we see China coming into the equation now because Russia is asking for defensive military aid from China. I think this goes to show that Russia is getting desperate in the situation. Also, other countries in the world, like India, it would be great if India were to come out in support of Ukraine and not side with Russia. And so, I mean, yeah, I don't know what exactly a new alliance would look like, but as many countries can come into alliance as possible would be great because we see these other superpowers in the world like China and Iran and different countries that pose a threat. And so, you know, as many countries can join alliance as possible is good for strength and stability. Zelensky showed a video during his speech that was pretty intense. Would you be able to describe what that video was about?

Yeah, the video was a couple minutes long. It showed this vast disparity between Ukraine and peaceful times and Ukraine and war times. And it shows footage from different Ukrainian cities with families laughing and playing together and having a great time, which I've been to Ukraine three times in the past. And so I've seen that Ukraine for myself. And it's an extremely peaceful and joyful country. and it's a great place to visit and to live in as well. And then it showed just the contrast in what's going on now with Russia doing these bombings, injuring civilians in cities, showing the bombings of schools and hospitals. It's showing the mass burial of innocent civilians and showing also Ukrainians fleeing the country and families having to leave behind their brothers, husbands, fathers.

to fight in this war against Russia and children crying in the video. And it really appeals to the emotions and it shows the stark contrast in what Ukraine should be as opposed to what it is today. You mentioned you've been to Ukraine on a number of occasions. Do you have family and friends that are in Ukraine now? I don't have family over there, but I do have some friends. I actually, on a mission trip to Ukraine in 2010 and 2011 also, there is an interpret. on my trip. And right now he has joined the Ukrainian military and he's fighting in Odessa on the Black

Sea. And that's the third largest city in Ukraine. And I think Russia would love to capture that city. But so far it has not been taken over. And so I'm rooting for my friend there. I also have a friend from Kiev, the capital, but a couple weeks ago, she fled to Poland and she's staying with a friend there, which honestly I was really glad to hear that she's safe and sound. And I know a few people over there still. And so I'm just praying for them that they'll be safe and, you know, that they'll be okay. Of course. No, we're keeping them in our thoughts and our prayers as well. As we begin to wrap up here, I'm curious as Russia seems to be on the war path and there's no end in sight. It doesn't seem like this is going to just stop anytime soon. What comes next?

Zelensky has given this speech. He's done this tour of a bunch of different places. He's talked to all these world leaders. What comes next? It's hard to say exactly. I think this war could. continue on for several more months, just given how poorly the Russian military has done and how well the Ukrainian military is fighting back. I think a lot of it just connects back to Putin. Putin is the one who wants this war to continue on. He doesn't want to be embarrassed. I think deep down he already has been embarrassed, and that's why he's been getting desperate and asking for help from China. But yeah, I don't know if Russia would want to secure part of Ukraine's east and

and keep that for themselves. Hopefully they won't, you know, be able to take over the whole country. I don't think that's very likely just because a lot of people think that the swore was supposed to last only for a couple days. And already now it's gone on for about three full weeks now. And so, yeah, I don't know. I mean, maybe a peace negotiation would come about. But to be honest, I don't have high hopes for that because Russia has not kept its obligations

with negotiations in the past and doesn't tend to keep its word. and lies. And, you know, we've seen this with all the ceasefire agreements made so far. Russia continually goes back on these and does not keep the ceasefire. So I don't know what will happen exactly, but I could see this conflict going on for several more months. That was Alexis, a research associate for Russia and Eurasia here at the Heritage Foundation. Alexis, I really appreciate your time. Of course. Thanks for having me. Thank you so much again for listening to that bonus episode of the Daily Signal podcast.

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