Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky speaks during a news conference in Vilnius, Lithuania, on Jan. 10.Ints Kalnins/Reuters
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky urged his country’s allies to make good on their promises of military aid on Thursday, particularly in the form of desperately needed air defence systems as Russia scales up its air strikes.
Moscow has recently renewed its campaign of targeting Ukraine’s now crippled energy infrastructure, resulting in major damage to its power grid.
“Every day Russian terrorists cut off power to Kharkiv and other cities, and every day we hear that new aid is coming soon. The reality must finally match the words, and Russian terror’s real losses must be ensured,” Zelensky told a news conference in Vilnius after a summit of Central European leaders.
Kyiv relies heavily on Western Patriot systems as it does not have sophisticated air defences of its own. It needs 26 units of the system in total to cover the country – and at least seven urgently. Ukraine has already warned of dwindling air defence missiles.
President Andrzej Duda said that Poland had no Patriots to offer Ukraine but that they had discussed supplying Soviet-era missiles.
“We talked with Zelensky about a certain stock of Soviet-era missiles which we have in our warehouses and we have talked about handing them over,” Duda said.
Leaders from a dozen states in Central Europe including Poland, the Czech Republic and Romania attended the “Three Seas Summit,” with the war in Ukraine prominent on the agenda.
Ukraine also signed a 10-year security agreement with Latvia. The Baltic nation is set to spend at least 0.25% of its gross domestic product in military aid for Ukraine, also supporting it with cyber defence, demining, and unmanned technologies.
Zelensky urged the leaders of those countries neighbouring Russia to use all means possible to promote military aid for Kyiv.
“Advocating for assistance to Ukraine now means advocating for every country’s own security in our region,” he said.