Ukraine asks for 7 Patriots to protect civilians, the West has 100, provides none

Josep Borrell, EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy. Photo: Josep Borrell/X

The European Union must urgently provide Ukraine with necessary air defense equipment and ammunition to save Ukrainian cities daily attacked with Russian missiles and guided bombs.

This was stated by EU High Representative Josep Borrell during a speech at Forum Europa.

According to Borrell, Dmytro Kuleba, Foreign Minister of Ukraine, “desperately” asked EU High Representative for 7 Patriot air defense systems that would be enough to protect the most crucial infrastructure as well as lives of Ukrainians.

“It should be inconceivable that we were not able to provide them [Patriots], given that the Western armies have about 100 batteries of Patriot. And still, we are not able to provide the seven they [Ukrainians] are asking desperately for,” Borrell said during his speech at Forum Europa on April 9.

He then that now the EU should think more about how to prevent Ukraine’s destruction as it would allow them to spend less on reconstruction in the future.

“Ukrainians do not have the capacity to avoid destruction because, to tell the truth, we should be doing more and quicker in order to allow them to have the capacities they need,” Josep Borrell stated.

The leader of the EU admitted that Europe pursued the notion that “trade of goods and dialogue will induce political and social change”, but it was proved to be a wrong approach when dealing with a dictator.

“Rather than achieving the effect of making Russia more liberal and democratic, this policy became a threat for us because we have become more dependent on Russia’s energy. We learned that interdependency goes both sides and at the end, dependencies can become a challenge or a weakness,” concluded Borrell.

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