How might this work?
- Using Articles 5 and 6 of the UN Charter, Russia's membership in the UN and, in particular, in the Security Council, should be suspended.
- The UN Security Council could then approve the no-fly-zone according to Article 42 of the UN Charter.
- In accordance with Article 47 of the UN Charter, a Military Staff Committee is established.
- The newly created NFZ coalition is established, under Articles 45 and 49 of the UN Charter.
- The NFZ is designed in a way that can ensure the protection of Ukraine’s airspace and avoid the escalation of military activities on the territory of other states.
There are various ways to implement a no-fly-zone, including the exclusion of hostile aircraft within a clearly defined area. The only operations on the ground would be to suppress enemy air defenses posing a threat to allied aircraft.
[1] https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/ukraine-thoughts-and-l...
This cleared the space so that when Putin attacked, there would be no NATO personnel in the line of fire, and no excuse for a war.
If there was any interest in preventing what is going on, those people would not have been pulled out, and instead, additional exercises with Ukraine would have been conducted, sending a strong message to Putin.
Instead, a vacuum was created that would be hard for someone like Putin to resist.
It's now pretty much too late, except for possibly establishing a no-fly zone in the west of Ukraine to deal with the humanitarian crisis. But, you would need some leadership ability to do that, and that is severely lacking.
One exception that I know of: Poland's ambassador Bartosz Cichocki stayed in Kiev. Polish consulate in Lviv is still working.
