Brussels (EFE) not including fighter jets yet.
The meeting, which was held at the NATO headquarters, on the eve of a meeting of allied defense ministers, served for Ukraine’s partners to hear from the Ukrainian Defense Minister, Oleksii Reznikov – who upon arrival showed a handkerchief with a drawing of an airplane -, the most pressing needs of their country, and to coordinate their contributions.
The Secretary General of the Atlantic Alliance, Jens Stoltenberg, stressed at the beginning of the meeting that “the urgent thing now is to deliver what has already been promised”, and that the material works properly and has the necessary ammunition.
No fighter jet announcements
The head of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, Mark Milley, summarized that 11 countries have pledged to provide tanks, 22 to provide infantry fighting vehicles, 16 have offered artillery and ammunition, and another nine, air defense artillery. .
For his part, the US Secretary of State for Defense, Lloyd Austin, recalled that the countries that support Ukraine have committed close to 50,000 million dollars in donations of lethal material since the beginning of the Russian invasion, on February 24.
The United States, Germany and the Netherlands are collaborating to provide Ukraine with Patriot air defense systems, while France and Italy are working to provide a SAMP/T air defense system.
In addition, a consortium of countries including Germany, Poland, Canada, Portugal, Spain, Norway, Denmark and the Netherlands are collaborating to supply Leopard tanks.
Meanwhile, the United States, the Czech Republic and the Netherlands are jointly supplying more than 90 T-72 main battle tanks, in addition to the latest donation from Poland of T-70 tanks and the Challenger tank company company that will to provide the UK.
“All these capabilities will continue to be important to the success of Ukraine (…) It is about providing all the capabilities that we promised, integrating all these systems,” Austin said, adding that “I have no announcement to make about aircraft today.”
Spain will send an air defense system to Estonia
Regarding the Spanish contribution, Spain will send a NASAMS air defense system to Estonia in April to reinforce NATO’s eastern flank, as announced by the Baltic country’s Defense Ministry.
Meeting on the sidelines of the meeting of NATO Defense Ministers held this Tuesday in Brussels, the heads of that portfolio from Spain, Margarita Robles, and from Estonia, Hanno Pevkur, agreed to this deployment for a period of four months.
In a statement released by the Estonian ministry, Pevkur claimed to be “very happy” to have reached this agreement, which also includes the sending of 80 support soldiers.
Urgency before the Russian offensive
According to allied sources, “we have little time to help the Ukrainians prepare for an offensive” because Russia is massively mobilizing troops and prepositioning air assets in eastern Ukraine,
The same sources warn that “although Russian capabilities, the ground forces, are very demoralized, very deteriorated and very depleted, the Russians still have a fairly significant Air Force.”
For this reason, for the allies it is a priority to guarantee the Ukrainian air defense and its ammunition – even ahead of sending tanks – to defend urban centers from Russian attacks, in which it has used 30 different types of missiles.
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