The Americans want a quick end to the war. The Ukrainians want to be sure Russian missiles, bombs and drones won\u2019t be able to hit Ukrainian homes ever again. That\u2019s a problem.<\/p>\n
Iron-clad protection of Ukrainian homes and businesses against future Russian bomber, missile and kamikaze drone strikes will be politically possible for the West to provide, and will likely become a major stumbling block to US President-elect Donald Trump\u2019s bid to end the Russia-Ukraine War in a matter of days, regional security experts told Kyiv Post in interviews.<\/p>\n
The Kremlin after invading Ukraine unleashed the most punishing sustained aerial bombardment of a nation, by any country, since the Vietnam War. According to end-of-September Ukrainian government counts, since July 24 Russian forces had launched 9,627 missiles of all types and 13,997 kamikaze drones at targets across Ukraine.<\/p>\n
From October this year through to the present, Russian combat aircraft launched an additional 100-150 air strikes, daily, to hit front line positions and the rear area, Ukrainian army counts say.Kremlin spokespersons have said that Russia only hits military targets, but either by intent or accident, the reality is different.<\/p>\n
On July 9, a Russian cruise missile ploughed into a children\u2019s hospital in central Kyiv, killing at least two people and injuring 30 women and children and injuring more than 150. The deadliest Russian strike of 2024 hit a graduation ceremony at a military institute in the northern city of Poltava, killing 50 and injuring 271.<\/p>\n
Almost all victims were civilians.Ukraine\u2019s miniscule air force and thinly-spread air defenses have struggled to intercept the arsenal of Russian flying munitions \u2013 ranging from high-tech semi-hypersonic missiles, ballistic missiles and newly-developed glider bombs weighing as much as three tons, to imported Iranian kamikaze drones and North Korean missiles \u2013 violating Ukrainian airspace daily.<\/p>\n
An October UN estimate said that its researchers had confirmed 11,973 Ukrainian civilians killed in the war, almost all by Russian bombardment. Ukrainian officials and independent media usually put the actual figure twice that or more. A February UN estimate put the cost of reconstruction and recovery war damage in Ukraine, both from air bombardment and ground combat, at $486 billion.<\/p>\n
Key officials in the newly elected Trump-led administration have said that stopping the war, and in part Russia\u2019s relentless military bombardment of civilian Ukraine, will be a top priority when they take power in January 2025.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe president has made it clear that he wants to bring both sides to the negotiating table. He is focused on ending the war, not continuing it,\u201d Trump\u2019s nominated National Security Head Mike Waltz told Voice of America in a Nov. 14 interview.<\/p>\n
A key challenge for Waltz and the incoming White House foreign policy team will be finding a way to accommodate, or maybe just steamroll, the Kyiv position that a ceasefire would directly threaten Ukrainian national security, unless Ukraine had absolute guarantees against future Russian attacks.<\/p>\n
The view that the Kremlin cannot be trusted and that only military hardware on the ground in Ukraine, or hard military support commitments by powerful allies, or both, could deter Russia from attacking again is almost universal in Ukraine, and increasingly supported in European capitals.<\/p>\n
One key piece of any peaceful Ukrainian future \u2013 credible and effective protection of Ukrainian homes and businesses from future Russian air, missile, and kamikaze drone strikes \u2013 would be a technical stretch for all of NATO even were the US on board with it, which America isn\u2019t, regional security specialists agreed.<\/p>\n
\u201cNATO has standing plans for no-fly zones over Ukraine, they could execute it were there a decision,\u201d Defence Policy Expert and CEO of his Defense Representation Enterprise Alp Sevimlisoy told Kyiv Post in a November interview.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut there has to be in synchronicity with the United States. American support for it to be decisive.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sevimlisoy and other regional security experts said that, were either NATO as an organization or a group of NATO nations willing to commit to protection of Ukrainian air space, and America were not to participate, then the protection to Ukrainian air space would be somewhere between not particularly effective, to symbolic.<\/p>\n
Major European air forces might just be able to deploy dozens of aircraft and sufficient support personnel to patrol airspace between Ukrainian and Russian forces were there to be a ceasefire, but even were the aircraft and crew to be found in Europe, NATO bases in Germany, Turkey and Romania would be critical for any multi-national attempt to protect Ukrainian air space, they said.<\/p>\n
Professor Gustav Meibauer, a Nijmegen political science researcher in a November interview with Kyiv Post pointed to the complexity of protecting Ukrainian air space from future Russian attack, even if all the physical means were available.<\/p>\n
\u201cLegally, this is not a problem for international law. Ukraine has called for help,\u201d Meibauer said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe problem is rules of engagement.\u201dAuthor of the policy analysis \u201cNo-Fly Zone Effectiveness: From Military-Strategic Tool to Political Shorthand,\u201d Meibauer said that past coalition-operated no fly zones in Syria, Bosnia and Iraq were a scale of magnitude smaller than the level of air protection Ukraine would need, to be secure from more Russian air strikes.<\/p>\n
Russia\u2019s battered but still powerful air force, and numerous air defense systems would make any international attempt to make Ukraine\u2019s skies safe from current or future Russian air attacks a giant air-policing effort on a scale the Atlantic Alliance has never come close to attempting before, against a near-peer adversary NATO has never faced in a shooting conflict before, analysts said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn the past, if the adversary has anti-air capabilities, they would need to be suppressed. In 2011, the first thing was to hit the air defenses, in order to de-risk the no-fly zone. In Ukraine they would have to consider that. You don\u2019t want NATO jets flying over Ukraine and being shot at from Russia-controlled territory or Russia. How do you get rid of that risk?\u201d Meibauer said.<\/p>\n
Lt. Gen. (ret.) Virgil B\u0103l\u0103ceanu, former senior Romanian officer at the NATO headquarters in Brussels, told Kyiv Post \u201cThe likelihood of NATO declaring a no-fly zone outside of NATO airspace, specifically beyond the airspace of frontline states on NATO\u2019s eastern border, is nearly impossible. Why? Because NATO decisions are made only by consensus, and there will likely be at least one NATO member state opposing such a declaration.\u201d<\/p>\n
Opinions varied on Ukraine\u2019s (or Waltz\u2019s negotiating team\u2019s) chances of lining up an individual European state to commit warplanes and personnel to protection of Ukrainian air space, as part of a Russo-Ukrainian ceasefire deal.<\/p>\n
\u201cSome countries could see participation in a multi-lateral (air) operation in Ukraine as a way to advance their own national security objectives,\u201d Sevimlisoy said.<\/p>\n
\u201cTurkey is a Black Sea superpower\u2026but it would have to be as part of a coalition.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIn this situation, we would already be talking about national decisions\u2014difficult to achieve but not impossible. Clearly, this would involve decisions at the level of frontline states, using their own means to secure the area or potentially including those of some partners,\u201d B\u0103l\u0103ceanu said.<\/p>\n
Meibauer said: \u201cThis is politics. It\u2019s not facts-based specific types of strategy, it is a lot about vibes. That goes all the way up to key decision-makers. Some are good at looking at interests. But [German Chancellor Olaf] Scholtz really seems to struggle with the real geo-political needs of Ukraine. These decisions are guts-based. How will my voters react?\u201d<\/p>\n