Serhiy Zgurets: “Ukraine needs up to 20 air defense systems from arsenals, not warehouses”
17 December 2024 17:39
President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy reminded Ukraine’s Western partners that as compensation for Ukraine’s non-acceptance into NATO, they promised to provide our country with enough air defense systems to protect it from Russian missiles. However, the Ukrainian president hinted that this promise has not yet been fully fulfilled,
“We remember that as compensation for the inability to invite Ukraine to join the Alliance at that stage [at the Washington summit], we were promised a significant number of air defense systems. I ask for your help to ensure that this is fulfilled,”
– zelenskyy said at the summit of the United Kingdom’s Joint Expeditionary Force (JEF).
He also added that Ukraine currently needs 12-15 more air defense systems.
“These quantitative indicators are difficult to interpret in terms of sufficiency or insufficiency. There are different types of air defense systems: for example, Patriot with a range of more than 100 kilometers, NASAMS with a range of up to 40 kilometers, IRIS-T, which has an even shorter range. That’s why the Ukrainian side is talking about the need for up to 20 different systems,”
– explains the expert.
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According to Zgurets, this number of systems should provide coverage of key energy infrastructure facilities, which is a priority for Ukraine. At the same time, achieving full protection is not an easy task due to the shortage of modern systems, even among European partners.
“If we’re talking about Patriot or NASAMS systems, the Europeans don’t have many of them. In order to transfer these systems to Ukraine, they will have to be removed from the arsenals of their armed forces, and it is very difficult to make such a decision,”
– says Zgurets.
The expert also emphasizes the importance of attracting assistance from the United States, which has some stocks of Patriot systems. However, most of these systems that Ukraine has received so far have been transferred by Germany.
“So far, we have received very few American Patriots – one of them, I think, was American, and three were German. That is why now the main requests are directed to the United States,”
– the expert added.
Thus, ensuring full protection depends not only on the number of air defense systems but also on their characteristics. And this is influenced by factors such as the capabilities of allies and political decisions at the international level.
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