Currently, Ukraine has not received any promises of further deliveries of the Patriot air defense system from Europe. At their meeting in Luxembourg today, the foreign ministers of the 27 EU member states simply announced that they would study how to strengthen Ukraine's air defense.
The government in Kiev requested the delivery of Patriot missiles in recent weeks in light of the increase in air strikes. So far, only Germany has promised this. The European Union's chief diplomat, Josep Borrell, expressed his disappointment and called for more to be done for Ukraine.
Poland appeals to Western Europe
The Netherlands and Spain are among the European countries that possess Patriot batteries, along with Germany, Sweden, Poland, Greece and Romania. Surface-to-air missiles are particularly effective against hypersonic missiles, which the Russian military is now increasingly using to attack infrastructure in Ukraine.
“I would like us to decide more quickly,” Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski said in the afternoon. The Polish Foreign Ministry, for its part, stated that it would be better, from its point of view, if “Western European” countries supplied additional Patriot batteries – and not the countries located in the east and closer to the “front.”
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba addressed EU foreign ministers in a statement via video link, saying: “Now that you are all sitting here at the table, it is time for action, not discussion.”
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