A deficit of missiles for Patriot systems “could not get any worse,” Zelenskyi says. The UK provides 120,000 drones to Ukraine in the largest delivery of its kind. Russia moves to give Putin the powers to send troops abroad to “protect the rights of Russian citizens”.
Deficit of missiles for Patriot systems “could not get any worse,” Zelenskyi says
Ukraine could face a weapons deficit if the war in the Middle East continues, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyi told German public broadcaster ZDF on Tuesday, according to Welt.
Referring to U.S. negotiators Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff, he said they were “constantly in contact with Iran and have no time for Ukraine.”
Zelenskyi said the supplies of U.S. weapons to Ukraine have become problematic. “If the war goes on, there will be fewer arms for Ukraine. It’s critical, especially in materials for air defenses,” he said.
Speaking about the missiles for Patriot air defense systems, he said: “The situation is in such a deficit, it could not be any worse.”
UK provides 120,000 drones to Ukraine in largest delivery of its kind
The UK is providing 120,000 drones to Ukraine in what the British Ministry of Defence said is the largest delivery of its kind.
“In the fifth year of Putin’s brutal war, the UK is stepping up further and providing the highest ever number of drones for Ukraine this year,” British Defence Secretary John Healey said, according to his office’s statement released on Wednesday.
The package will include long-range strike drones, intelligence and reconnaissance drones, logistics drones and maritime capabilities, which are all battle-proven on Ukraine’s frontline. Deliveries of these new drones to Ukraine have already started this month, the defense ministry said.
“This big boost of battle-proven drones will give Ukrainian forces the capability they need to defend their people and fight back against Russian aggression. With eyes on the Middle East in recent weeks, Putin wants us to be distracted, but Ukrainians continue to fight with huge courage and nothing will distract us from continuing to stand with them for as long as it takes to secure peace,” Healey said.
He co-chaired a meeting of the 50-nation Ukraine Defense Contact Group in Berlin on Wednesday alongside the Ukrainian and German defense ministers and NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte. Healey said the UK would also send thousands of artillery rounds and air defense missiles to Ukraine.
Russia moves to give Putin powers to send troops abroad to “protect the rights of Russian citizens”
A bill that would allow Russian leader Vladimir Putin to send the troops abroad to “protect the rights of Russian citizens” there passed the first reading in the State Duma, the Russian parliament’s lower chamber, Russian media said Wednesday.
The draft law is presented as one that aims to “protect the rights of Russian citizens whenever they are arrested, detained, criminally prosecuted or persecuted in a different way.” It lists the measures by courts that Moscow does not recognize.
The bill follows earlier intelligence assessments by Western countries that Russia is preparing for a possibility of a broader confrontation with NATO.
Germany’s foreign intelligence service, the BND, warned last year of possible “Crimea-style” provocations in the Baltics. “Russia is a country that may be tempted to continue the war on our continent,” France’s chief of defense, General Fabien Mandon told lawmakers last autumn. “The first objective I have given the armed forces is to be ready in three or four years for a shock that would be a kind of test,” he added.
The Institute for the Study of War (ISW) said on April 9 that it has previously observed incidents of damage to undersea cables in the Baltic Sea against the backdrop of Russia’s intensifying “Phase Zero” campaign to destabilize Europe, undermine NATO’s cohesion, and set the political, informational, and psychological conditions for a potential future Russian war against NATO.