Sen. Marco Rubio says imposing a no-fly zone over Ukraine 'means starting World War III'

• GOP Sen. Marco Rubio on Saturday gave a dire warning against imposing a no-fly zone over Ukraine.
• "It means World War II," Rubio of Florida said on ABC's "This Week."

Sen. Marco Rubio on Sunday warned against implementing a no-fly zone over Ukraine, suggesting that it'll plunge the US into World War III.

"A no-fly zone has become a catchphrase. I'm not sure a lot of people fully understand what that means," Rubio said in an interview on ABC's "This Week."

"That means flying AWACS [Airborne Warning And Control Systems] 24 hours a day, that means the willingness to shoot down and engage Russian airplanes in the sky. That means, frankly, you can't put those planes up there unless they're willing to knock out the anti-aircraft systems that the Russians have deployed, and not just in Ukraine, but Russia and also in Belarus."

"So basically a no-fly zone, if people understand what it means, it means World War III. It means starting World War III," Rubio added. "It's not some rule you pass that everybody has to oblige by. It's the willingness to shoot down the aircrafts of the Russian Federation, which is basically the beginning of World War III."

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has for days called on Western leaders to impose a no-fly zone. On Sunday, he reiterated that urge as he described in a video how eight Russian missiles "completely destroyed" an airport in Vinnytsia.

Earlier this week, he rebuked NATO for deliberating on the decision to implement a no-fly zone, saying the inaction effectively gave Russia a "green light" to continue to strike at Ukraine.

"All the people who will die from this day will die because of you, as well," Zelensky said. "Because of your weakness. Because of your disunity."

NATO said implementing a no-fly zone would escalate the Ukraine-Russia conflict into "a full-fledged war in Europe, involving many more countries and causing much more human suffering."

On Saturday, Russian President Vladimir Putin said any country that tries to impose a no-fly zone will be considered as "participants in a military conflict, and it doesn't matter members of which organizations they are."

"It is impossible to do it, on the very territory of Ukraine, it's possible only from the territory of some neighboring states. But any movement in this direction will be considered by us as participation in an armed conflict," Putin added.