This month Kiev made an urgent appeal to Western allies for seven additional air defense systems, such as US-made Patriots or Soviet-made S-300s, as Russia steps up an air and missile campaign against the country’s cities and power infrastructure.
According to the Financial Times, Greece and Spain in particular are facing intense pressure from their EU and NATO allies to provide more air defense systems. European leaders personally pressed Spanish and Greek prime ministers Pedro Sanchez and Kyriakos Mitsotakis at a summit in Brussels last week to donate air defense systems to Ukraine, according to people briefed on the discussions, the FT reported.
The two leaders, whose armed forces between them have more than a dozen Patriot systems plus others such as the S-300, were reportedly told that their needs were not as great as Ukraine’s and that they faced no imminent threats.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky previously blamed his European allies for insufficient aid to Kiev, stressing that his country “cannot afford to wait for allies to make decisions” this year. During the NATO-Ukraine Summit last week, the alliance pledged to provide additional air defense systems to Kiev.
Over the weekend, the US Congress gave the “green light” to a $61 billion package for Ukraine.
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