Even as the Russian invasion of Ukraine is utterly unjustified and reactionary, and should be politically opposed, the Ukrainian president Zelensky’s “drumbeat” of calls for the U.S./NATO to (attempt to) institute a “no-fly zone” over Ukraine is extremely reckless and frankly unconscionable. If this were done, the U.S. would be obligated to shoot down any Russian plane entering into this zone. Such a shoot-down would constitute an act of war—one with unpredictable consequences.

Think about it for just one minute. Such direct warfare between the U.S./NATO and Russia could rapidly develop into World War 3, leading to destruction and death on a scale far, far beyond what is happening now, including very possibly the use of nuclear weapons which, in turn, could lead to the extinction of humanity as a whole. How would the Ukrainian people, or anyone else, possibly benefit from that?! With this in mind, “extremely reckless” and “unconscionable” is the least that can be said about this.

What adds further dimensions to this very real danger is that the imperialist propaganda instruments in this country (calling themselves “mainstream news media”) continue to “air” discussions of this notion of a “no-fly zone”—or more recently the idea of such a zone over parts of western Ukraine, where a retreating apparatus of the previously existing Ukrainian government would attempt to set up a “rump state” to serve as the base for conducting an insurgency against whatever Russia would install as a government, if it captured Kyiv/Kiev. In this scenario, this “rump state” would, of course, be backed by the U.S./NATO, which would then almost certainly involve them in direct warfare with Russia, as Russia would be extremely unlikely to allow for such a rival “rump state” to exist.

And it is worth noting—chillingly—that while, for the most part and as the clearly dominant expression (at least for now), this idea of a “no-fly zone” has been “shot down” (if you’ll pardon the expression) by the Biden administration and most of the rest of the politicians, of both parties (as well as NATO officials), there are some exceptions to this, including Joe Manchin (who refuses to rule out such a “no-fly zone”) and Adam Kinzinger (yes, he of the January 6 Congressional Committee) who has actually been advocating for—or for seriously considering—this notion of (an attempted) “no-fly zone.”

Revolutionaries, along with every decent person who actually cares about the future of humanity—and if humanity will even have a future—not only needs to take this talk very seriously but oppose it whenever it comes up with a full dose of the reality we outlined just above and challenge anyone mouthing this to get their heads out of their asses and start thinking about humanity instead of swallowing—and spreading—imperialist mental poison.