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Temerko calls for No-fly zone on NATO border as Ukraine faces 'Holodomor like famine'
27 March 2022, 10:15 | Updated: 27 March 2022, 11:07
A leading Conservative Party donor has called for a 100-mile No Fly Zone around Ukraine's borders, as he warned the country is facing the worst food crisis since the Holodomor famine.
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Ukrainian businessman Alexander Temerko called on the West to introduce a No Fly Zone on NATO territory parallel to the Ukrainian border and away from the "area of conflict with Russia".
Speaking exclusively on Swarbrick on Sunday, Mr Temerko said: "We have enough air defence systems in NATO and partly Ukraine to create this area of protection."
He explained that a No Fly Zone would make the border safer for civilians, protect agricultural land and provide security to allow Ukrainian forces to secure an airport and "extend the No Fly Zone".
Mr Temerko warned that by autumn as many as 45 million Ukrainians could be suffering from starvation amid the ongoing Russian invasion, describing the crisis as a "global problem".
Explaining the situation in Ukraine, the businessman said the country was heading for an "absolute disaster".
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Temerko appeals to international community to impose no-fly zone
"I do not know what the world will do because it is very difficult to accommodate a couple of million refugees but it is much more difficult to feed a 40 or 45 million population who will be suffering without water and without food.
"And today a No Fly Zone around the agricultural sector must be possible and maybe will be a global decision.
"Because no power in Europe, in Russia, in America immediately in the autumn can feed these people and that is absolutely crucial."
He said the declining food security situation could be a worse humanitarian catastrophe than the Holodomor famine of the 1930s in Soviet Ukraine, where over 3.9 million died due a man-made famine attributed to the Soviet government under Joseph Stalin.
Issuing a stark warning he said: "All of the world said it was a crime against humanity and now this crime might return."
Adding "only a NATO imposed No Fly Zone can help Ukraine because Putin "is absolutely paranoid" wants to "eradicate" the nation.
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Ukrainians have a 'different mentality' to other refugees
Mr Temerko dismissed the fact he called the head of the security council and former head of the FSB Nikolai Patrushev "a decent family man" as a "typical soviet union joke".
He also refused to explain to Tom Swarbrick what checks were conducted when making donations to the Conservative Party, and suggested everyone who donated was a "decent person".
When quizzed on when he last spoke to the Prime Minister, Mr Temerko refused to answer but said: "[Boris Johnson's] personal energy and personal belief for supporting Ukraine is crucial for our country and Great Britain.
"And today he is a leader of driving this process, I do not believe that any other Prime Minister would have been so bold or so supportive in Ukraine as Boris Johnson."
