Former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley on Sunday said she is “not in favor of a no-fly zone” over Ukraine “right now,” as Russia continues its invasion of the country.
“I’m not in favor of a no-fly zone right now,” Haley said when asked by moderator Chuck Todd on NBC’s “Meet the Press” if she supports such a measure.
Whether or not to impose a no-fly zone over Ukraine has been a point of contention in Washington and globally amid Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. A growing number of bipartisan congressional lawmakers and Ukrainian officials – including President Volodymyr Zelensky – are calling for the measure to be implemented, but Biden administration officials have said the move is off the table.
White House press secretary Jen Psaki on Thursday said President Biden has not been willing to impose such a measure because the U.S. would have to enforce the no-fly zone, which she said would essentially require “the U.S. military shooting down Russian planes.”
She said that would prompt “a potential direct war with Russia, the exact step that we want to avoid.”
Haley on Sunday said she supports the Biden administration “stepping up and doing the things that will matter.”
She laid out a number of steps the U.S. should take, including imposing sanctions on all energy companies in Russia and removing Russian President Vladimir Putin from the international banking system.
“We know that the one thing that punches Putin in the gut is to hit his energy sector. There is no reason we should be taking money from an enemy. We should go ahead and sanction all of those energy companies right now. We should remove him from the international banking system,” she said.
“We should be making sure that we’re moving forward on giving them the missiles they need. They have said that they don’t have what they need. They need javelins, they need stingers, they need anti-air and anti-tank missiles to be able to do this. We’ve got to give it to them. We should have done all this before Putin did his first move. We were late to the game. We’re still late to the game. It’s not too late now. But we’ve got to get on the ball,” she added.
