EU ministers stop short of sending Kyiv their Patriot air defences

Governments under pressure to supply more protective systems

European ministers said yesterday they were looking urgently at how to provide more air defence to Ukraine, but they stopped short of concrete pledges of the Patriot systems that Kyiv values most.

Meeting in Luxembourg, foreign and defence ministers from the EU said the US House of Representatives vote to approve a $60bn Ukraine package at the weekend should not lead to any complacency on their part.

“We can be joyous for a day but we have to be prepared for the battle that is coming tomorrow. Therefore there can be no calming down,” Lithuanian foreign minister Gabrielius Landsbergis told reporters as he arrived at the meeting.

With Russia having stepped up air attacks on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure and cities, EU governments are under pressure to supply more protective systems to Kyiv.

But countries that have US-made Patriots – which Ukraine already uses and values highly for their ability to shoot down fast-moving ballistic missiles – were non-committal yesterday.

Since Kyiv began a push for more Patriots in recent weeks, Germany has been the only EU country to pledge an extra battery. Berlin is also leading a drive to get more air defence from other countries for Ukraine, through donations of equipment and financial contributions.

Other European countries including Greece, the Netherlands, Poland, Romania, Spain and Sweden also have Patriot systems.

Officials say it is hard for countries to part with Patriots as they are an integral part of national defences.

Ukrainian officials have countered that the risk of EU countries coming under air attack is extremely low, while Ukraine faces such attacks frequently.

Swedish defence minister Pal Jonson said Stockholm had already agreed to give air defence weapons to Ukraine, including the RBS 70 portable system.

Asked if Sweden would also provide Patriots, he said: “I don’t exclude that possibility but right now we’re focused on a financial contribution but also possibly RBS 70 because that could alleviate some of the pressure on the Patriots.”

Spanish foreign minister Jose Manuel Albares said: “We are well aware of Ukraine’s need for air defence, and especially Patriots, and Spain has always done whatever it could.”

He added: “Since it is a real war, I’m not really a friend of the idea of disclosing too much about what we give, when and from where.”

Greece has long resisted sending larger-scale defence systems or jets to Ukraine, mainly because of its own tensions with Turkey, although it has sent arms and ammunition.

Asked if Greece was planning to send S-300 surface-to-air missile systems to Ukraine, government spokesperson Pavlos Marinakis said in Athens: “There won’t be any move that would even minimally endanger the country’s deterrent capability or air defence.”

Dutch defence minister Kajsa Ollongren said the so-called Ramstein group of countries that supply military aid to Ukraine would meet at the end of the week.

That meeting would provide another opportunity for governments to announce air defence donations to Kyiv.

Meanwhile, Poland’s president says the Nato member would be ready to host the nuclear weapons of the military alliances’s other members in response to Russia’s moving its nuclear weapons to neighbouring Belarus.

President Andrzej Duda made the comments in an interview published yesterday in the Fakt tabloid.

Russia has “recently relocated its nuclear weapons to Belarus”, Mr Duda said, in a reference to Belarus president Alexander Lukashenko’s announcement in December.

“If there were a decision by our allies to deploy nuclear weapons within the nuclear sharing also on our territory in order to strengthen the security of Nato’s eastern flank, we are ready,” Mr Duda said.

He said Poland is aware of its obligations within the 32-member alliance that includes the US.

Prime minister Donald Tusk, who shares Mr Duda’s views on national security, later told journalists that Poland’s security and military potential are his priorities, but he said that he needed to discuss this suggestion with Mr Duda urgently.

“I would also like any potential initiatives to be, first of all, very well prepared by the people responsible for them and (I would like) all of us to be absolutely positive that we want it,” Mr Tusk said in a rather reserved response.

“This idea is absolutely massive, I would say, and very serious (and) I would need to know all the circumstances that have led the president to make this declaration,” he said.

In Moscow, a Kremlin spokesperson said any deployment of US nuclear weapons in Poland would be met with steps necessary for Russia’s security.