Trump supports NATO countries shooting down Russian aircraft in their airspace, he says with Zelensky at UN
President Trump said Tuesday that NATO countries should shoot down Russian aircraft if they enter Western airspace.
“Yes, I do,” he said in response to a reporter’s question on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly.
Trump was meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky when he engaged with the press about recent Russian incursions into Polish, Romanian and Estonian airspace.
Asked whether the US would back up NATO allies, the US president said it would “depend” on the circumstances.
Article 5 of the organization’s founding treaty allows any member state to call on the full alliance for military action against aggressors. It has only been invoked once, after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks on the US.
On Friday, NATO intercepted three Russian MiG-31 fighter jets that flew into Estonian airspace and stayed there for about 12 minutes.
Moscow denied it had violated international rules by crossing the border without permission.
Earlier in September, Warsaw and Bucharest observed Kremlin drones entering their respective airspace.
Polish forces shot down at least four of the nearly two dozen Russian drones detected entering the country’s territory.
All three nations joined NATO following the dissolution of the Soviet Union, with Poland joining in 1999 and Estonia and Romania becoming part of the bloc in 2004.
Both Trump and newly confirmed US Ambassador to the UN Mike Waltz warned President Vladimir Putin in recent days against further incursions.
“We don’t like it,” the president told reporters Sunday of the Estonia incursion.
Waltz added in a UN Security Council meeting Monday: “At a time when President Trump and the United States has been focused, and spent an enormous amount of time and effort to end this horrific war between Russia and Ukraine, we expect Russia to seek ways to de-escalate — not risk expansion.”
Trump has also prodded NATO nations to increase their share of collective defense spending since returning to the White House, though some Baltic states have still appealed to the US Congress for additional funding.
The discussions come as the US is seeking to wind down Russia’s more than three-year war against Ukraine by threatening economic sanctions and urging European countries to halt purchases of Russian oil.
“In the event that Russia is not ready to make a deal to end the war, then the United States is fully prepared to impose a very strong round of powerful tariffs, which would stop the bloodshed, I believe, very quickly,” Trump declared in his address to the General Assembly Tuesday.
“Europe has to step it up. They can’t be doing what they’re doing,” he added, referring to continental purchases of Russian oil.
The US leader also praised Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky as “a brave man” who has been “putting up one hell of a fight” against Putin’s war of aggression.
“We’re going to have a meeting, and we have about 30 meetings scheduled today. We have a lot of meetings scheduled today, going pretty late into the night,” Trump went on, “but this is an important one, and we have great respect for the fight that Ukraine is putting up.”
