Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky admitted that the country is seriously lacking in anti-aircraft weapons needed to fight Russian forces.
“Frankly, we have only 10% of the air defense complexes that we need (to deal with Russia),” President Zelensky said in his address to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE). ) on October 13.
The Ukrainian leader emphasized that Ukraine is facing a confrontation with Russia – an overwhelming country in terms of both military equipment and the number of missiles.
“We want to possess the ability to close the sky. And our capacity is not enough,” he emphasized.
Over the past few days, Russia has carried out large-scale missile and drone strikes on cities across Ukraine, targeting military, communications and energy targets.
Russia claimed the attacks were in response to a number of Ukrainian sabotage attempts against critical Russian infrastructure, including the Kursk nuclear power plant, the TurkStream gas pipeline and the Crimean bridge.
The Russian attack has exposed the vulnerability of Ukraine’s air defenses in protecting key infrastructure, as they have sent most of their defense complexes to the front lines to launch a counterattack.
After the intense Russian raid, President Zelensky and Ukrainian officials called on countries to help upgrade the air defense systems in the country.
Ukraine’s Defense Minister Alexey Reznikov on October 12 confirmed that the first unit of the advanced German IRIS-T air defense system had arrived in Ukraine.
“The recent missile strikes on Kiev and other Ukrainian cities demonstrate the importance of providing Ukraine with air defense systems quickly,” German Defense Minister Christine Lambrecht said.
Dutch Defense Minister Kasja Ollongren announced that the Netherlands will donate 15 million euros worth of anti-aircraft missiles to Ukraine as a response to Russian missile attacks.
French President Emmanuel Macron said on October 12 that the country would provide radar and air defense systems to Ukraine in the coming weeks. The US also committed to deliver more air defense complexes to Ukraine.
At the meeting of the Ukrainian Defense Liaison Group, more than 50 countries also pledged to provide more weapons to Ukraine. Meanwhile, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg also called on member states to focus more on the supply of air and missile defense systems to Ukraine.
According to Ukrainska Pravda , Zelensky has reiterated decisions to aid Ukraine with air defense systems from the West, but he expects the support to be “many more times”.
Zelensky said that providing Ukraine with air defense shields would be an important step towards ending the war in the near future.
“I propose to supply Ukraine with the necessary amount of air defense systems. We need to protect the sky from (attacks from) Russian forces. Doing this will be the fundamental step towards the end. war in the near future,” he said.
