After an incident in which Russian drones entered Polish airspace, Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski said allies should revisit the idea of a no-fly zone over Ukraine. He argued that NATO and the EU are technically capable of such a step, but Warsaw cannot decide on it alone. Sikorski also said it could be in Poland’s interest to shoot down drones over Ukrainian territory if Kyiv made such a request.
The idea of closing the sky has been discussed since the first weeks of the full-scale war. In 2022, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky called for a humanitarian no-fly zone to prevent Russia from attacking Ukrainian cities. At the time, the administration of Joe Biden reacted coolly, while Jens Stoltenberg and Olaf Scholz publicly said NATO and Germany would not pursue such a move.
In the summer of 2024, the issue resurfaced after a Polish-Ukrainian security agreement that allowed for the possible interception of missiles and drones in Ukrainian airspace. Moscow then warned of a “specific” response, and Stoltenberg repeated that the alliance would not become a party to the conflict.
“The issue is not technical capability but political decision-making. NATO fears further escalation with Russia,” military observer David Sharp said.
The experts cited by the publication differ in their assessments. Former SBU officer Ivan Stupak said NATO aircraft could help intercept mainly cruise missiles rather than cheap drones, since using air-to-air missiles against drones would be too expensive. He noted that one hour of an F-16 flight costs about $22,000 to $27,000, meaning such sorties would make sense only during a confirmed missile attack.
An anonymous Ukrainian military expert, by contrast, described a full no-fly zone as nearly unworkable. He said that more than 90% of aerial attacks on Ukraine are carried out with drones, around 5–6% with cruise missiles, and that ballistic targets can largely be intercepted only by Patriot systems. He added that even if Ukraine received all roughly 650 Patriot interceptor missiles produced annually, that would still not be enough.
Pavlo Lakiichuk, head of security programs at the Strategy XXI center, argued that the discussion may concern not a full closure of the sky but a partial one, for example over western Ukraine. He said integration of surveillance and warning systems became more realistic after Ukraine and NATO signed an agreement on the CRC System Interface and introduced Link-16. Still, both supporters and opponents of the idea agree that the next step depends not on technology but on whether Western countries are willing to accept the political risks.