JAKARTA - Britain's prime minister said he had held several talks with Ukraine's president on a no-fly zone, admitting Britain and NATO could not cross the line and torment him in media interviews.
Citing Sky News on March 11, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky last Wednesday told special correspondent Alex Crawford in Kyiv that Western countries are undecided on the issue of 'closing the skies' against what he called 'Nazis'.
"If you unite against the Nazis and this terror, you must close. Don't wait for me to ask you a few times, a million times. Close the sky", President Zelensky said.
"Close the skies and stop the bombing", he said.
He also made the plea during a historic live video address before British lawmakers in the House of Commons on Tuesday.
But Britain, the US, and NATO have persistently rejected Zelenskyy's calls for a no-fly zone over Ukraine, saying it could cost them the downing of the Russian plane and possibly spark a new world war.
Prime Minister Johnson and the Ukrainian leader have had almost daily conversations in the 15 days since Russia invaded.
"We've had some very frank conversations and very disappointing conversations because there's a limit to where, frankly, Britain and NATO would be deemed to be in direct conflict with Russia", Johnson said.
“It's torturous, really torturous. I've had this conversation at least a few times with (President) Volodymyr, but I think the difficulty is that I have to order RAF jets, British pilots into the air on a mission to shoot down Russian jets."
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On the occasion, PM Johnson also expressed concern about the deployment of chemical weapons ordered by President Putin in Ukraine, reiterating the fears of Western officials after Moscow accused Kyiv of planning to deploy them on the battlefield.
"The things you hear about chemical weapons are straight from their playbook. They start saying that there are chemical weapons stored by their opponents or by America", he said.
"So when they themselves use chemical weapons, as I fear, they have some kind of maskirovka, a fake story, at the ready."
"You've seen it in Syria. You've seen it even in Britain. That's what they've done. This is a cynical and barbaric government", said PM Johnson.
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