EU ministers have been warned against “relaxing” support for Ukraine but stopped short of new pledges to supply air defence systems that Kyiv is urgently seeking to defend itself against relentless Russian bombardment.
The Ukrainian government has said it is running out of US-made Patriot air defence missiles as Russia intensifies attacks on infrastructure and cities.
Germany, which earlier this month promised to deliver a third Patriot battery to Kyiv, has been leading efforts to bolster Ukraine’s air defences. “Every additional air defence system saves lives in Ukraine,” said Germany’s foreign minister, Annalena Baerbock. “We urgently appeal to everyone to review their stocks once again.”
At a meeting of the EU’s foreign and defence ministers on Monday, the EU’s chief diplomat, Josep Borrell, said: “We have been asking all member states to do whatever they can in order to increase the air defence capacity of Ukraine.”
At that meeting, Kyiv’s most vocal allies urged their counterparts not to be complacent about Ukraine’s defence, after US lawmakers’ approval of a $61bn (€57bn, £49bn) aid package for the country.
Baiba Braže, Latvia’s new foreign minister, said: “As Europeans we have to step up; we can’t relax, even though the US has passed the aid package.”
Her Lithuanian counterpart, Gabrielius Landsbergis, struck a similar note in describing the long-delayed approval by the US House of Representatives of the package on Saturday. “We dodged a historic bullet, but unfortunately many more bullets are on the way. Therefore we can be joyous today but we have to be prepared for the battle that is coming tomorrow,” he said. “We have to continue to speak about how we are going to assist Ukraine further.”
After the recent promise of the German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, to deliver a third system to Ukraine, EU member states are under growing pressure to transfer similar defence systems to the battlefields rather than leaving them in storage.
“Patriots can only be called air defence systems if they work and save lives rather than standing immobile somewhere in storage bases,” Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, wrote on Sunday.
Patriot air defence systems, also used by Israel, have mobile radars and missile launch stations, which enable them to intercept aircraft, missiles and other airborne threats from great distances.
Zelenskiy last week urged western nations to donate at least seven more Patriot or similar systems to “save many lives and really change the situation”. Ukrainian officials favour the Patriot systems, as they are said to be the only ones capable of downing Russia’s hypersonic missiles.
Nato’s secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, said on Friday that Nato allies had Patriot systems available to provide to Ukraine, but he declined to go into details, citing classified information. “We are working with those allies to ensure that they make the right decisions to provide new Patriot batteries,” he said.
Germany, Poland, Sweden, Spain and Greece are among the EU countries that possess the Patriot systems. But EU nations appear hesitant to give up their supplies.
The Dutch foreign minister, Hanke Bruins Slot, said the Netherlands was contributing to initiatives to bolster Ukraine’s air defences and ammunition stocks. Asked about transferring Dutch Patriot systems, she said: “We are looking again if we can deplete our store of what we still have, that will be difficult.”
Facing the same question, Sweden’s defence minister, Pål Jonson, said: “I don’t exclude that possibility but right now we are focused on financial contributions.” He noted that Sweden had sent other missile defence systems to Ukraine, and could send more Swedish-made RBS70 short-range air-defence systems, “because that could alleviate some of the pressure on the Patriot systems”.
Asked if Greece was planning to send S-300 surface-to-air missile systems to Ukraine, the government spokesperson Pavlos Marinakis told Reuters: “There won’t be any move that would even minimally endanger the country’s deterrent capability or air defence.”
The EU foreign ministers also agreed further sanctions against Iran, targeting drones that could be transferred to Russia. The EU has already imposed sanctions on scores of Iranian officials and organisations for their role in supplying Russia with military hardware to attack Ukraine, as well as for Iran’s repression of domestic human rights protesters.
“We are going to take measures with respect to the production and export of missiles and drones,” Borrell said, when asked about the Iran sanctions.
Some EU member states are wary of heavy diplomatic punishment for Iran, fearing the consequences for attempts to revive the frozen nuclear agreement, the JCPOA. More hawkish members are seeking to designate Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as a terrorist organisation.
“How many fronts does Iran need to open for us to get serious about sanctioning them?” said Landsbergis, who favours the designation. “I hope that … we reach the limit where we actually can impose serious sanctions that would actually restrict their military industry from fighting in Ukraine and for fighting against Israel.”
