An aviation expert explains how the "Sky Shield" program could be implemented in Ukraine.

Ukraine has all the necessary capabilities to organize the "Sky Shield" initiative to protect Ukrainian skies, but this will only be possible after the end of hostilities.

This opinion was expressed by aviation expert Kostiantyn Kryvolap during a broadcast on Espresso.

He states that there has never been a case in history where a country under military aggression asked others to protect its airspace.

"And that country has such capabilities. It has no reservations from the perspective of international law preventing it from doing so. That’s the first point. The entire "Air Shield" concept was developed by specialists from the Royal Air Force of Britain back in 2022. These specialists are considered the best planners in the entire NATO alliance. They calculated the number of aircraft needed to ensure patrolling. They outlined all the possible risks in this matter and potential future risks. And they proposed this concept. What’s the concept? That Ukraine’s airspace can be secured with 120 tactical aviation aircraft from countries - not NATO as a whole, but individual European countries that are part of NATO, with each country making its own decision," he said.

The analyst notes that this initiative would not be implemented at the NATO level to avoid it being perceived as an escalation.

Kryvolap believes that all Ukrainian nuclear power plants must be covered by the "Air Shield" program.

"Now Europe is starting to wake up a bit; they’ve recalled this "Air Shield," recalled this concept. The idea is that these 120 aircraft wouldn’t fly closer than 200 kilometers to the line of combat or the border with Russia. Because that’s calculated as a zone where there’s a high likelihood of strikes on the aircraft. You can’t risk those pilots or those planes - Russian R-37M missiles could reach them there, and S-300 and S-400 systems could also be operational. So that’s the zone. Everything else can be protected. And all our nuclear power plants fall within this zone. Lviv, Odesa, Kyiv, and others - if you draw this 200-kilometer zone, it can all be protected by these aircraft. What does this give us? It allows us to take the air defense systems currently operating across Ukraine and concentrate them closer to this zone, thereby increasing the density of our air defense specifically in this 200-kilometer area," the expert explained.

In the analyst’s view, implementing this program is possible, but he suggested that a decision might only be made after a peace agreement is reached.

"It’s possible, it’s realistically possible. But there’s a caveat: it will all happen after a peace agreement is signed. Personally, I’m not too optimistic about a peace agreement. I understand that it’s a political struggle, entirely different processes. They don’t have much direct connection to the actions we’re taking in this war right now," Kostiantyn Kryvolap believes.

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