Greece and Spain under pressure to provide Ukraine with additional air defence systems
Greece and Spain are under intense pressure from their EU and NATO allies to provide Ukraine with additional air defence systems.
Source: Financial Times, as reported by European Pravda.
Details: This month, Kyiv urgently appealed to Western allies to provide seven additional air defence systems.
Only Germany has announced the supply of an additional Patriot system.
Other EU leaders used last week's summit in Brussels to personally urge Spanish and Greek Prime Ministers Pedro Sánchez and Kyriakos Mitsotakis to donate some of their systems to Ukraine, people briefed on the discussions said.
The two leaders, whose armed forces have more than a dozen Patriot systems plus others such as the S-300, were told that their needs are not as great as Ukraine's and that they face no immediate threat.
Quote: "We all know who has them, we all know where they are, and we all know who really needs them," said one source.
Officials said that Poland and Romania, which also have Patriots, are under less pressure to consider supplying these systems to Kyiv, given their more vulnerable location on the border with Ukraine.
Ukraine currently has at least three Patriot systems, including one from the US and two from Germany (this was before Berlin's announcement on 13 April).
Pressure to donate the systems will intensify at a meeting of foreign and defence ministers from all 27 EU member states in Luxembourg on Monday, officials said. It is known that Kyiv is particularly interested in the outdated Greek S-300 systems, which Ukrainian forces already have in service and have experience with.
"There are countries who are not in an immediate need of their air defence systems, to be very honest. Each country is being asked to decide what it can spare," said one EU diplomat involved in preparing the meeting.
The Greek and Spanish defence ministries declined to comment to the Financial Times. After meeting with Zelenskyy last month, Sánchez said Spain would "deliver new capabilities in 2024 to help Ukraine defend itself against Russian aggression."
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said on Friday that he expects new air defence supply commitments "to be announced shortly" but did not provide any details on countries or weapons.
The German Foreign and Defence Ministers announced a global initiative to find additional air defence equipment for Ukraine in a letter to dozens of countries.
Earlier, Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said that Ukraine had identified 100 air defence systems available in allied countries and was asking for at least seven of them to be transferred to protect Ukrainian cities.
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