The Spanish Minister of Defense, Margarita Robles, announced this Friday at the telematic meeting of the Contact Group on Ukraine that Spain will provide the Kiev Army with “a set of long-range Patriot anti-aircraft interceptor missiles,” as Morning Express reported. The shipment will be immediate, since Robles added that the missiles will arrive at the NATO logistics base in Poland “within four days.” Previously, she has stressed that Ukraine’s air defense against drone and missile attacks by Russia constitutes “a fundamental concern” of the allies. The Defense note does not specify how many Patriot missiles Spain will supply to Ukraine, but it will necessarily be a limited number, both due to their high cost (more than one million euros per unit) and because the Spanish Army’s reserve is around fifty. interceptor projectiles.
NATO and the EU have pressured Spain to give Ukraine one of the three Patriot missile batteries that it bought second-hand from Germany in 2004 and 2014. One of them has been deployed in Turkey since 2015 and the other two are in the Marine base (Valencia), where one of them is dedicated to the training of Spanish and Ukrainian artillerymen. The Ministry of Defense has refused to part with the battery stationed in Turkey, claiming that all of them are essential to guarantee national security if necessary. In compensation, it has agreed to deliver to kyiv a batch of Patriot interceptor missiles, with a ceiling of 24 kilometers and a range of 150.
At the meeting, Robles reviewed the latest shipments of Spanish military aid to Ukraine: a set of hospital medicines and individual first aid kits in combat, last Wednesday; and a new shipment of heavy caliber artillery ammunition on Thursday. And he has announced further shipments of 155 and 120 millimeter artillery ammunition in the coming months. In addition, Defense is preparing a new weapons package for before June 30 with light and heavy machine guns, protected wheeled logistics vehicles, armored infantry vehicles, anti-tank weapons and field artillery howitzers, along with the first 10 battle tanks. of a batch of 19 Leopard 2 A4s that are being rehabilitated and commissioned. In addition, Spanish companies will directly supply kyiv with anti-aircraft surveillance systems and remote weapons stations for defense against drones.
In his speech, Robles congratulated the United States Secretary of Defense, Lloyd Austin, and his Ukrainian counterpart, Rustem Umerov, for the approval of a US military aid package for Kiev worth 61 billion dollars and stressed that the The commitment of the allied countries “not only provides the defense systems that Ukraine needs, but also represents an injection of morale and support to soldiers and the civilian population” in the face of Russian aggression.
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