Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that partners have begun to restrain the transfer of missiles for Ukrainian air defense
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy reported a shortage of missiles for Patriot, NASAMS and other air defense systems. According to him, the shortage arose because a number of European countries began to restrain the transfer of ammunition to Ukraine against the backdrop of massive Russian drone attacks in the fall. The head of state told journalists about this.
Zelensky noted that Ukraine has repeatedly proposed to establish its own or joint production of missiles for air defense systems, but it is not yet possible to implement this due to the lack of appropriate licenses from manufacturers.
“It is difficult with Patriot systems. You know that 55-60 of them are produced by American partners per year today, but I know that they are working on increasing them, I will not give details, they are even working with European partners. We proposed: “Let’s produce them with ours, with the Poles or with the Romanians. Who will you say? It is possible to partially share production. There is no such decision yet, Zelensky said.
In this regard, Ukraine is forced to continue purchasing missiles for air defense needs.
The president also suggested that Russia could have purposefully carried out drone attacks on the territory of certain European states so that they would refrain from transferring missiles to Ukraine for air defense on the eve of the winter period.
“Politically, it was not easy for some countries, but we are still grateful for the volumes that we receive,”, Zelensky concluded.
