Germany launches urgent appeal to bolster Ukraine's starved air defences against Russia
By Andrey Sychev and Sabine Siebold
BERLIN (Reuters) - Germany has appealed to European Union and NATO member states to bolster Ukraine's air defences as quickly as possible as Russian missiles pounded Ukrainian cities on Wednesday and its president repeated urgent calls for support.
German Defence Minister Boris Pistorius and Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock have approached the EU, NATO and third party countries in a new initiative that will also be discussed at a Group of Seven (G7) foreign ministers' meeting this week.
Ukraine is facing a shortage of ammunition, with vital funding from the U.S. blocked by Republicans in Congress for months and the EU failing to deliver munitions on time.
"We and our partners around the world must now be just as resolute in our defence against Russian terror from the air," Baerbock said ahead of the G7 ministerial meeting on the Italian island of Capri.
"Stronger air defences are a matter of life and death for thousands of people in Ukraine and the best protection for our own security."
In the latest strike, Russian missiles killed at least 16 people and wounded dozens in the northern Ukrainian city of Chernihiv on Wednesday, prompting Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskiy to make another plea for weapons.
The German initiative was in response to the changing nature of the threat in Ukraine, a German defence ministry spokesperson told a briefing, adding that a number of countries had signalled their interest.
"Russia is increasingly using industrially produced glide bombs that can be fired from a great distance from the Ukrainian border," the spokesperson said.
FACING CHOICES
The Netherlands, Czechia and Denmark quickly rallied behind the proposal.
"More air defences are needed, and they are needed fast," Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte said after meeting NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg and his Danish and Czech counterparts in Brussels.
"We will consider, the three of us, how we can support this German initiative."
Germany is Ukraine's second-biggest donor of military aid after the United States and most recently pledged a U.S.-made Patriot air defence system and air defence missiles to Ukraine.
More than two years into its full-scale invasion, Russia has staged massive airstrikes on power stations and substations in recent weeks, prompting Kyiv to issue desperate appeals for supplies of high-end air defences.
"This would not have happened if Ukraine had received sufficient air defence equipment and if the world's determination to counter Russian terror had been sufficient," Zelenskiy said about the attack on Chernihiv.
Zelenskiy earlier pointed to how effectively Israel and its allies had repelled a barrage of Iranian drones and missiles in an attack last weekend.
"European skies could have received the same level of protection long ago if Ukraine had received similar full support from its partners in intercepting drones and missiles, he said.
Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen suggested European countries should consider "sending a few of our own air defence systems to Ukraine at a time when they, not we, are struggling daily to fight off the never-ending Russian attack".
Stoltenberg said NATO defence ministers would focus in their planned talks this week on air defences and supplying Ukraine with more weapons, even if that came at the expense of meeting their own countries' stockpile targets.
"If allies face a choice between meeting NATO capability targets and providing more aid to Ukraine, my message is clear: Send more to Ukraine."
(Reporting by Andrey Sychev, Alexander Ratz, Sabine Siebold, Charlotte Van Campenhout; Writing by Matthias Williams; Editing by Sharon Singleton and Gareth Jones)
