German government rejects idea of closing part of sky over Ukraine with help from NATO members

The German government rejected the possibility of creating a no-fly zone over Ukraine, which could be implemented by NATO allies, announced the government spokesman, Steffen Hebestreit, the German newspaper Asb Zeitung reported.

According to Hebestreit, the current priority is to strengthen the air defense of Ukraine. He noted that Germany is contributing to this by supplying an additional Patriot system to Kyiv.

At the same time, as the spokesman of the German government noted, discussions on the introduction of a no-fly zone over Ukraine with the support of Western partners have already been rejected in the past. This also applies to new proposals that are made.

"We rejected it at the time, and I think the same is true of the various requests that are coming in now," Hebestreit said.

The day before, some representatives of the German parliament, in particular, lawmakers from the Free Democratic and Green parties and the Christian Democratic Union, proposed to protect part of the Ukrainian sky from Russian attacks with the help of air defense systems located in Poland or Romania.

The idea to create a no-fly zone over part of Ukraine belongs to the Munich Security Conference expert Nico Lange and the former Assistant Secretary General of NATO, Lieutenant General Horst-Heinrich Braus. As Lange stated, closing the sky over Ukraine would allow creating a safe zone up to 70 kilometers wide on the state's border, relieving air defense forces in other areas of the front.

On May 4, the New York Times wrote that the new air defense systems provided by Germany will arrive in Ukraine no earlier than the end of June.

On May 6, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz called on European allies to strengthen Ukrainian air defense from what is in the available reserves.

On May 9, German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius announced that his country would purchase three HIMARS systems for Ukraine from the United States.