European Union countries possessing U.S.-made Patriot air defense systems appeared hesitant Monday to share their assets with Ukraine as Kyiv called for seven of the missile batteries to help repel ongoing Russian air assaults.
Europe’s reluctance to (again) come to the aid of Ukraine contrasts with U.S. Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) and Democrats who passed a $61 billion bill to further Ukraine’s war effort over the weekend, as Breitbart News reported.
Russia’s air force is vastly more powerful than Ukraine’s, but sophisticated missile systems provided by Kyiv’s Western partners can challenge Russian aviation as the Kremlin’s forces slowly push forward along the roughly 620-mile battlefront in the war, AP reports.
Dutch Foreign Minister Hanke Bruins Slot said the Netherlands is “looking at every kind of possibility at the moment” and is offering financial support to a German initiative to help Ukraine bolster its air defenses and to buy more drones.
Asked at a meeting of European Union foreign and defense ministers why the Netherlands is reluctant to send some of its Patriot systems, Slot said: “We are looking again if we can deplete our store of what we still have, but that will be difficult.”
Swedish Defense Minister Pål Jonson also expressed hesitancy over sharing the anti-aircraft missile system, saying: “I don’t exclude that possibility, but right now we’re focused on financial contributions.”
He said Sweden would send other systems that could “relieve some of the pressure” on the need for Patriots.
Questioned about whether Spain might step up with Patriots, the AP report notes Foreign Minister José Manuel Albares said his country “will make its decisions based on the power it has in its hands to support Ukraine.”
A Patriot anti-aircraft missile system during the German National Guardian exercise at the tank training school on the Munster military training area. (Philipp Schulze/picture alliance via Getty Images)
“I don’t think we’re helping anyone if we hear all the time what it is that’s being given, when it’s being given and how it’s getting in,” he told reporters at the meeting in Luxembourg.
The Patriot is a guided missile system that can target aircraft, cruise missiles and shorter-range ballistic missiles. Each battery consists of a truck-mounted launching system with eight launchers that can hold up to four missile interceptors each, a ground radar, a control station and a generator.
A key advantage of the U.S.-made systems, apart from their effectiveness, is that Ukrainian troops are already trained to use them.