Republican Senator Marco Rubio, one of the harshest critics of Russian President Vladimir Putin, said in an interview Sunday morning that placing a no-fly zone over Ukraine is a really bad idea.

“A no-fly zone has become a catchphrase. I’m not sure a lot of people fully understand what that means,” Rubio told ABC’s George Stephanopoulos.

“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 … not just in Ukraine but Russia and also in Belarus,” he said.

“So basically a no-fly zone, if people understand what it means, it means World War III. It means starting World War III. 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.”

(YWN World Headquarters – NYC)