President Joe Biden has personally told his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelenskyy that the US or NATO will not establish a "no-fly zone" over Ukraine.

In interviews with Reuters and CNN, the Ukrainian president repeated his request for NATO countries to establish a "no-fly zone", which would allow the alliance to control the skies over Ukraine and deny Russia the ability to use its superior aircraft against Ukraine. Zelenskyy also asked NATO to speed up its application for Ukraine's inclusion into the alliance.

“Our partners, if they are not ready to take Ukraine into NATO ... because Russia does not want Ukraine to be in NATO, should work out common security guarantees for Ukraine,” Zelenskyy said.

But the United States and other NATO countries have repeatedly ruled out the introduction of a "no-fly zone," which would require NATO aircraft to monitor airspace and intercept violators with the ability to shoot them down if they don't back down. White House press secretary Jen Psaki said the previous day that this would be equivalent to declaring war on Russia, which possesses a huge arsenal of nuclear weapons.