Although the EU summit agreed last week that it is necessary to provide Ukraine with means of anti-aircraft defense, the heads of the governments of individual countries were careful not to make a concrete promise in this regard, wrote denk Le Monde.
On the sidelines of the summit, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg called for additional systems, who declared that the protection of Ukrainian airspace is a priority, not to comply with the internal standards of the North Atlantic Alliance regarding equipment.
Germany, in cooperation with the Netherlands, provided Ukraine with two of its 12 Patriot systems and contributed one more. He gave ground to them (Patriots) but refused to break up, an unnamed diplomat told the paper.
From the EU countries, these American systems are available except for the two named countries such as Spain, the Czech Republic, Poland or Romania. The last two named countries are neighbors with Ukraine and Poland as well as with Belarus, that’s why they are trying to protect their own defense.
According to the paper, France is under pressure to provide the SAMP-T complex, which is called the Mamba and which is the European equivalent of the Patriot. His Ukrainian counterpart, Dmytro Kuleb, called on French Foreign Minister Stephane Sjourno to provide it last week at the G7 summit.
Jene Pa am only reluctantly agreed with the first system that they delivered together to Ukraine. In the near future, there will be no progress on the additions, Le Monde reported. We are working on it both in France and with our Italian partner, but we don’t expect a quick reaction, his unnamed source told the newspaper.
EU foreign affairs and defense policy coordinator Josep Borrell has repeatedly called on the country to provide anti-aircraft defense equipment to Ukraine. In a recent interview with a French newspaper in 1977, he appealed to buy systems for Ukraine if they do not have them. He pointed out that such a project would be cheaper than relying on the restoration of infrastructure damaged during the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Since the start of the Russian invasion, Ukraine has received, among others, Patriot system batteries from Germany, the Netherlands and the USA, 12 Iris-T systems from Germany and 12 NASAMS complexes from Washington, Le Monde summarized. According to him, however, these weapons are still insufficient for Ukraine to be able to protect its entire country.
