Ukraine needs 10-12 Patriot systems to protect entire country - Podolyak
Ukraine needs 10-12 Patriot systems to protect the country's territory.
Adviser to the Head of the Presidential Office Mykhailo Podolyak said this in an interview with The Guardian, Ukrinform reports.
"Russia’s tactics are clear: they use massive drone attacks to overload our anti-aircraft systems and then in parallel, they have a window of opportunity to use ballistic missiles to target infrastructure. We don’t have enough modern anti-aircraft systems like Patriot, that are able to hit the latest generation Russian missiles like Oniks and Kinzhal – the deficit of these systems means we can’t cover all the parts of the country," Podolyak said.
According to Podolyak, Ukraine needs 10-12 Patriot systems or similar to be able to defend the entire country.
He added that the recent strikes on Odesa showed that strengthening air defense systems was the right thing to do from both an economic and moral point of view.
"It will be a lot more expensive to fix all of this later than to provide a Patriot system to defend the south," Podolyak said.
According to the advisor to the head of the Presidential Office, Russian missile attacks on Ukrainian cities were intended to make Ukraine's allies think about persuading Kyiv to start negotiations.
"We understand that if you are a long way away from the war and your electorate is saying internal prices are more important it’s hard to think about war … But you can just take a sheet of paper and work out what is cheaper: helping Ukraine to win the war, or having a frozen conflict with all the risks and instability it entails for years to come? We are explaining this to our partners, but the speed of decision-making isn’t as fast as we would like. There is a kind of slight chaos about the way these decisions are made. I think there should be a moderation centre where allies could take these decisions about what is needed at any given moment and set the timetables for deliveries in a coordinated way," he added.
As Ukrinform reported, President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky said that the state is looking for ways to strengthen the air defense of Odesa and the entire south.