Defense Minister Mykhailo Fedorov said he will hold a series of talks today with his counterparts — defense ministers of countries that have Patriot missiles in their stockpiles. He made the statement after Russia’s latest massive combined attack on Ukraine.
According to Fedorov, Ukrainian air defenses shot down almost all cruise missiles and more than 90% of Shahed drones overnight. However, Russian ballistic missiles once again struck civilian targets.
The minister stressed that Russia, unable to achieve its goals on the battlefield, is increasingly using ballistic missiles against residential buildings and killing civilians.
Fedorov said Moscow is deliberately increasing the number of ballistic attacks and using missiles on a scale not seen before. According to him, Russia is exploiting a severe shortage of missiles for Patriot systems.
“Fewer such missiles are produced globally in a month than the enemy launches at Ukraine over the same period”, the minister said.
He noted that today’s talks will continue President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s discussions with European leaders. Ukraine will ask its partners to provide Patriot missiles from their own stocks immediately.
Fedorov said Ukraine has already contracted and continues to contract Patriot missiles, but deliveries will begin next year. That is why Kyiv is asking partners to temporarily allocate missiles from their stockpiles and later replace them using Ukraine’s future deliveries.
“A simple decision for partners — to temporarily allocate these missiles from their warehouses — will save countless lives of our citizens. We cannot allow cautious bureaucracy to become a barrier to protecting human life”, the defense minister stressed.
According to Fedorov, Ukraine needs these missiles right now — in Ukraine’s air defense system. He emphasized that the main task is to provide Ukraine with additional Patriot missiles as quickly as possible, because the protection of Ukrainian skies and people’s lives depends on it.
