EU countries fail to agree on providing Ukraine with additional Patriot missiles
Photo: Kaja Kallas (Getty Images)
EU defense ministers on Monday, September 28, made no new commitments to provide Ukraine with interceptor missiles for Patriot air defense systems, according to a statement by EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas.
"On the interceptors, unfortunately, there were no new pledges made today, so many were pleading for this swap," she said.
Earlier, Kallas said that Ukraine needs more interceptor missiles for Patriot systems before winter and called on member states that have them in their stockpiles to provide them to Kyiv.
The EU foreign policy chief also said that €1 billion out of the €6.6 billion allocated to Ukraine from the European Peace Facility would go toward joint procurement.
Earlier, Reuters reported that the new US military aid package for Ukraine did not include missiles for Patriot air defense systems.
At the same time, the Trump administration plans to use all $400 million previously approved by the US Congress for aid to Ukraine.
Recently, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said during a meeting with representatives of the Ukrainian community in the US that an agreement had been reached on a new package of missiles for Patriot air defense systems.
In addition, during a briefing in New York, Zelenskyy said that Ukraine is collecting a hundred missiles, one or two at a time, directly from heads of state. The president emphasized that the US is the only country that could provide assistance on a large scale.
