An unspecified “European country” sent Ukraine a malfunctioning air defense system. “They had to change it several times,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in an interview with the Associated Press. The Ukrainian leader did not say which country was in question, and in the interview he again asked Western countries about the weapons he had already declared but not only. Indeed, some of the weapons promised by the West have yet to be delivered: “We have big decisions on Patriots, but we don’t really have them,” Zelensky said of the US-made air defense system.
Kiev wants advanced fighters: “We have nothing yet when it comes to modern warplanes,” Zelensky said. Poland and Slovakia have agreed to supply Ukraine with combat aircraft dating back to the Soviet era, but no Western country has yet agreed to supply modern warplanes, for fear that this could lead to an escalation of the conflict. The Ukrainian military was backed by billions of dollars in ammunition and weapons from Western countries during the war, and Zelensky welcomed the help. Since January, Ukrainian soldiers have been trained in the United States to use the Patriot system, but it has not yet been deployed in Ukraine. Zelensky explains that Kiev needs at least 20 Patriot batteries to protect itself from Russian missiles, and even that may not be enough “because no country in the world has ever been attacked with so many ballistic missiles.”
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