By Burc Eruygur
ISTANBUL (AA) - Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Tuesday said that Kyiv requires 12 to 15 more air defense systems to fully protect his country from Russian airstrikes.
Addressing a summit of the Joint Expeditionary Force (JEF), a UK-led defense coalition, via videoconference, Zelenskyy recalled Russia’s Friday airstrikes on the country’s energy infrastructure, terming it “one of the largest.”
He said that Ukraine managed to defend itself during the attack, adding that Russia will try to strike the country again “as soon as they are ready.”
“That’s why we need a reliable guarantee of protection against air terror, and this means having enough air defense systems. We need the full implementation of the agreements on air defense deliveries, particularly those made at the NATO Summit in Washington,” he said.
Zelenskyy further said that Ukraine was promised a “significant number” of air defense systems to "compensate for the inability" to invite Ukraine to join NATO at that stage.
“I ask for your help to deliver on this. And frankly, our partners know – we need 12-15 more systems, besides these, to fully protect our country from Russian missile strikes. It’s doable. The main thing is our partners’ political will,” he went on to say.
The Ukrainian president also highlighted the EU’s adoption of a 15th sanctions package a day earlier.
“I urge you to take even stronger action to ensure that the shadow tanker fleet and other Russian vessels, including those transporting weapons, can no longer operate in European waters,” he added.
On Monday, the EU adopted a 15th sanctions package against Russia, which the 27-member bloc said is designed to prevent the circumvention of EU sanctions by targeting Moscow’s “shadow fleet.”
A joint statement issued following the JEF summit in the Estonian capital Tallinn said that the UK, Denmark, Sweden, Poland, Finland, and Estonia are tasking their respective maritime authorities to “request relevant proof of insurance from suspected shadow vessels as they pass through the English Channel, the Danish Straits of the Great Belt, the Sound between Denmark and Sweden, and the Gulf of Finland.”
The JEF is a northern European security coalition led by the UK, and also comprises Denmark, Finland, Estonia, Iceland, Latvia, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Sweden, and Norway.