Ukraine urgently needs more air defense weapons - Stoltenberg

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said this in Brussels on Wednesday ahead of a two-day meeting of defense ministers of the NATO countries, according to an Ukrinform correspondent.

"Today we will meet with the Ukrainian Defense Minister, Minister [Oleksii] Reznikov, and the message from the NATO Allies will be that we are steadfast in our support to Ukraine, that we are prepared for the long haul and that we will support them for as long as it takes. There will be a meeting with Minister Reznikov in the US-led Contact Group for Ukraine and also dinner with NATO Ministers later on today, where we will address how to ramp up support for Ukraine. The top priority will be more air defense for Ukraine," Stoltenberg said.

He welcomed the recent announcement by Germany and also the delivery of German air defense systems to Ukraine. According to him, this becomes especially important against the background of horrific indiscriminate attacks against Ukrainian cities, civilians killed, civilian critical infrastructure destroyed, and attacks on the energy infrastructure, given that winter approaches. All of this, according to Stoltenberg, demonstrates the urgent need for more air defense for Ukraine.

"Allies have provided air defense but we need even more. We need different types of air defense: short-range, long-range air defense systems to take ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, drones, different systems for different tasks. And then, of course, Ukraine is a big country, many cities, so we need to scale up to be able to help Ukraine defend even more cities and more territory against the horrific Russian attacks against their civilian population," Stoltenberg added.

On October 12-13, Brussels will host a meeting of the North Atlantic Council at the level of defense ministers, as well as a meeting of the U.S.-led Ukraine Defense Contact Group.