In February 2022, Stolty shot down proposals of no-fly zone over Ukraine due to the risk of the conflict escalating into a war with Russia.

"He called me from a bunker in Kiev, near which Russian tanks were stationed," Stoltenberg said in an interview with the British weekly newspaper The Sunday Times. "And he said: 'I understand that you will not send NATO ground troops, although I disagree. But please, close the airspace. Do not allow Russian planes, drones, and helicopters to fly and attack us.'"

If a Russian plane or helicopter is in the air, we will have to shoot it down, and then we will be in a state of full-scale war between NATO and Russia. And we do not want to do that. As [Joe] Biden, who was then the US president, said, we will not risk a third world war for Ukraine — Stoltenberg

Democrats blocking sale of critically important weapons, including to our NATO allies, which harms US industrial base and jeopardizes our security and the security of our partners —State Department spokesperson Pigott to Axios.