NATO and the West in general are showing fear to Russia, and are thereby playing into President Vladimir Putin's hands in their failure to take bolder action, a former Ukrainian defense minister tells Newsmax.
Members of NATO, including the United States, have said no to repeated requests from Ukraine for a no-fly zone over their country. Western leaders say that will require them to shoot down Russian planes, essentially sparking World War III, and are instead supplying Ukraine with weapons and imposing harsh sanctions on Russia.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and others have said Russia will view those actions as war anyway, and have continued pressing for a no-fly zone, as the Russian military continues to bombard civilian targets.
Appearing Tuesday on "Eric Bolling: The Balance," former Ukrainian Defense Minister Andriy Zagorodnyuk said Russia is using the West's fear to manipulate.
"We have shot down already 40 planes, 40 fighter jets from Russia," he said, and are still fighting. "It seems like Ukraine is the only one country in the world which currently doesn't have a fear about Russia."
That's because Ukrainians have no other choice, he told Bolling.
"We need to save our country." Putin "threatens our existence."
Other countries see Russia as "invincible" and "extremely dangerous," he said, so they won't engage. But until they do, he added, "Russia is going to be exploiting that fear till the end."
No-fly zones over the entire country are challenging, Zagorodnyuk admitted, but said they can be done over certain parts of the country to allow civilians to live more normal lives, "because right now what they do they systematically every day, day by day (are) bombing civilian quarters, which have nothing to do about military objects … bread factories, for example, for some reason, they bombed schools. They bombed hospitals."
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