Ukrainian Journalist Confronts Boris Johnson Over No-Fly Zone

Ukrainian journalist Daria Kaleniuk made an impassioned plea to U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson to support the creation of a no-fly zone over Ukraine as Russia continues to invade the country, shelling the city of Kharkiv.

“Ukrainian people are desperately asking for the West to protect our sky,” Kaleniuk said during Johnson’s news conference Tuesday in Warsaw.

“You’re not coming to Kyiv, Prime Minister,” the journalist added. “You’re not coming to Lviv, because you are afraid, because NATO is not willing to defend, because NATO is afraid of the World War III. But it is already starting, and these are Ukrainian children who are there taking the heat.”

Johnson said he had to be “honest” about the U.K.’s inability to grant the no-fly zone demand.

“As I said to Volodymyr Zelenskyy I think a couple of times, unfortunately the implication of that is that the U.K. would be engaged in shooting down Russian planes, it would be engaged in direct combat with Russia,” Johnson said. “That’s not something that we can do or that we’ve envisaged. And I think the consequences of that would be truly very, very difficult to control.”

Johnson is not the only Western leader resisting a no-fly zone. The White House and U.S. lawmakers on both sides of the aisle, with few exceptions, have cautioned against the move.

“This would require a declaration of war by Congress, which is not happening,” Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) tweeted Monday.

Ukraine Interior Ministry adviser Anton Herashchenko said Tuesday that rocket strikes in Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, left 10 people dead and 35 injured, according to CNN.