‘I need to protect our sky’: Zelensky asks for air defence systems and fighters as alternative to no-fly zone

‘You know what kind of defense systems we need — S-300 and other similar systems — you know how much depends on the battlefield on their ability to use aircraft. powerful, strong air aviation to protect our people with freedom, or lend aircraft that can help Ukraine, help Europe’

Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky asked the US Congress for Soviet-made air defence systems and fighter jets as an alternative to a Nato-enforced humanitarian no-fly zone over his country’s airspace.

US and Nato officials have so far declined his pleas for a no-fly zone over Ukraine because such a measure would place Nato warplanes at risk of direct engagement with Russian aircraft, raising the possibility of a nuclear confrontation.

Nonetheless, Mr Zelensky, who delivered remarks to a special joint session of the House and Senate on Wednesday, called for a no-fly zone to be established with US support. But he said there was an alternative if a no-fly zone was “too much to ask”.

“You know what kind of defense systems we need – S-300 and other similar systems – you know how much depends on the battlefield on their ability to use aircraft. powerful, strong air aviation to protect our people with freedom, or lend aircraft that can help Ukraine, help Europe,” Mr Zelensky said.

Speaking of the aircraft he wants, Soviet-made MiG-29 fighters currently owned by Nato members that were formerly part of the Warsaw Pact, he told Congress: “You know that they exist and you have them, but they are on earth – not in Ukraine, in the Ukrainian sky. They don’t defend our people”.

“I have a dream,” Mr Zelensky continued, invoking the words of the late civil rights leader Rev Dr Martin Luther King Jr.

“These words are known to each of you today. I can say I have a need — I need to protect our sky,” he said. “I need your decision. Your help. Which means exactly the same. The same you feel when you hear the words:’ I have a dream’.