Inside the NATO debate over protecting Ukraine’s skies

Yehor Cherniev, a Ukrainian MP and chair of the Ukrainian delegation to the NATO Parliamentary Assembly, told Semafor that “we have to think about a common system of air defense.”

Russian missiles have repeatedly crossed into Poland and Romania, so a joint system would help not just Ukraine, but also protect NATO states, Cherniev argued. He said that sharing alerts about missile strikes, having other countries shoot down Russian missiles, or improving interoperability with neighboring air defense forces would all be welcome steps.

In an interview with The New York Times, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy also argued for similar support, saying that NATO should shoot down Russian missiles over Ukraine without the aircraft entering Ukrainian airspace.

“Is it an attack on Russia? No. Are you shooting down Russian planes and killing Russian pilots? No. So what’s the issue with involving NATO countries in the war? There is no such issue,” Zelenskyy said.

Ukraine’s air defenses have increasingly struggled to cope with Russia’s aerial campaign, as the Kremlin has ramped up its attacks, improved its tactics, and started firing harder-to-intercept weapons. According to a Wall Street Journal analysis, Ukraine intercepted just 46% of Russian missiles in the last six months, far less than its 73% success rate in the preceding six-month period.

European countries are unlikely to start shooting down Russian missiles, at least in the short-term. The military logistics required are complicated, and the politics of doing so are even trickier.

“If you’re going to engage targets over Ukrainian airspace, there needs to be some kind of coordination mechanism so that Ukrainian weapons don’t conflict with NATO weapons and the identification of Russian missiles is clear to all sides,” William Taylor, a former US ambassador to NATO, said.

The fact there would be at least two command-and-control arrangements, and that multiple countries would be involved in identifying friendly versus enemy targets, “would make it difficult,” Taylor said. “The best case is when there is one system.”

NATO countries would also be increasing their level of engagement in the war, he said, because non-Ukrainian troops would be firing weapons at Russian targets.

The second European official said “the problem with air defenses is really targeting, because friendly fire happens. I don’t want to compare NATO to Russia, but we saw how many friendly fire incidents Russia itself has had.”

Still, the fact that this idea is even being discussed openly speaks to a growing European willingness to think seriously about how to step up support for Ukraine in ways that would have been unimaginable a year ago, and to dispense with the self-imposed red lines Western countries have previously issued.

France’s Emmanuel Macron in particular, has long grated at the West’s willingness to announce the limits for its support for Kyiv, and called on NATO to adopt a strategy of “strategic ambiguity” to leave the Kremlin guessing.

“We have things that are actually on the table that were not on the table before, putting Moscow in a more uncertain position about what we would do and what we wouldn’t do,” the second European official said.

The trajectory of the war could significantly influence the debate, particularly if the Russians make major gains despite other policy shifts.

The US has now relaxed restrictions on Ukraine’s use of US-supplied weapons to hit targets inside parts of Russia.

With that ban eased, if the Russians continue to target Odesa and cities and western Ukraine, and especially if they target energy infrastructure, Volker argued countries in favor of shooting down Russian missiles over Ukraine would likely push the issue more aggressively.

“I don’t expect NATO to adopt a policy on this,” he said, but he added that countries comprising a “coalition of the willing” are getting “closer and closer” to doing it.