Hellas and Spain are under pressure from EU and NATO to provide air defense systems in Ukraineaccording to information of Financial Times. Kiev asked the West in April for seven additional systems to defend the country’s airspace, such as US Patriot missiles or Russian S-300s, as the Kremlin has stepped up military offensives in Ukraine to secure a lead in battlefield. The window of time is getting tighter, as just last Saturday the green light was given to $61 billion in military aid by the US Congress after a six-month delay. The next few weeks are expected to be difficult, as there is essentially a race against time until the necessary equipment is delivered.
To date only Germany has announced a delivery of a Patriot missile system. Leaders of other EU member states used last week’s Brussels summit to personally pressure Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis and his Spanish counterpart Pedro Sanchez to hand over some Patriot systems to Ukraine, according to sources familiar with the matter. British newspaper. The president of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky, wrote on the X platform, formerly Twitter, that “Patriots can be called air security systems if they are operational and saving lives, instead of being idle in storage somewhere.”
Officials have said unofficially that Poland and Romania, which also own Patriots, have come under less pressure because they are in a more vulnerable military position due to their border with Ukraine. At this stage, Kiev has at least three Patriot missile systems. Including two provided by the US and one coming from Germany, excluding the one Berlin announced would be delivered last week. NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said on Friday that new commitments to deliver air defense systems would be announced soon, but did not provide details on where they would come from, which countries or what type of equipment.
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