Ukraine continues to face a shortage of interceptor missiles for the US-made Patriot air defence systems. European partners are buying PAC-2 and PAC-3 missiles from the United States with their own funds in order to transfer them to Ukraine.
At present, most of the missiles being produced are being sent to the Middle East. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said this at a briefing in Brussels.
“We are not the number one priority when it comes to allocating PAC-2 and PAC-3,” he said.
However, Ukraine is grateful to the United States, which sells them, and to Europeans, who finance purchases for Ukraine.
“We receive them not only from the United States. We are working with Europe and with other countries around the world,” the President said, adding that missiles are being assembled in different countries in batches of two, five, or ten.
The President has passed on to partners in Europe all the data on missile needs. He said Europe has enough missiles for Ukraine to get through the winter, but it is unclear how many they will be able to provide.
- This year, due to a lack of anti-ballistic missiles, there have already been several attacks in which not a single missile could be intercepted. Ukraine is trying to reach agreements with partners on new deliveries and is also developing its own anti-ballistic Freyja project jointly with European countries.
- Earlier, the President said that in the first six months of this year, deliveries of air defence missiles fell threefold compared with the previous year.