Zelensky has asked the US to provide more Patriot air defence systems

Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky has asked the US to provide more Patriot air defence systems, as US Secretary of State Antony Blinken visited Kyiv today. Zelensky said the ‘crucial’ $60bn military aid package from the US, passed after Republicans spent months stalling, would be best used to support his nation’s air defence.

The Ukrainian leader said that he needs at least two Patriot air defence batteries for the northeastern city of Kharkiv, which is being pummeled by Russian air strikes. ‘The people are under attack: civilians, warriors, everybody. They’re under Russian missiles,’ he said. Some artillery, air defense interceptors and long-range ballistic missiles have already been delivered, some of them already to the front lines, according to a senior US official who travelled with Blinken.

Blinken, currently in Kyiv, added that some of it had already arrived in Ukraine, adding that it would turn the tides of the bloodiest conflict on European soil in decades. ‘We also know that in the near term the assistance is now on the way, some of it has already arrived and more of it will be arriving. And that’s going to make a real difference against the ongoing Russian aggression on the battlefield.’

Since the $60bn military aid package was signed by Biden last month, his administration has already pushed for $1.4 billion in short-term military assistance and $6 billion in longer-term support. Blinken is in Kyiv to allay fears that the US is focusing on the ongoing war in the Middle East. Since October, when Hamas attacked Israel, Blinken has visited the region seven times. By contrast, the last time Blinken was in Ukraine was in September. The aid comes as Russia has intensified its attacks, most noticeably as the U.S. House of Representatives sat on the aid package for months without action, forcing a suspension in the provision of most US assistance.

Those attacks have increased in recent weeks as Russia has sought to take advantage of Ukrainian shortages in manpower and weapons while the new assistance is in transit. 

Top Biden administration officials and Ukrainian national security officials held a call Monday ‘about the situation on the front, about the capabilities that they are most in need of, and a real triage effort to say, “Get us this stuff this fast so that we can be in a position to effectively defend against the Russian onslaught,”‘ said national security adviser Jake Sullivan.

The administration is ‘trying to really accelerate the tempo’ of US weapon shipments, he said. Zelensky said over the weekend that ‘fierce battles’ are taking place near the border in eastern and northeastern Ukraine as outgunned and outnumbered Ukrainian soldiers try to push back a significant Russian ground offensive.

The new Russian push in the northeastern Kharkiv region and a drive into the eastern Donetsk region come after months when the roughly 620-mile front line barely budged. In the meantime, both sides have used long-range strikes in what largely became a war of attrition.

The senior US official said despite some recent setbacks, Ukraine could still claim significant victories. Those include reclaiming some 50% of the territory Russian forces took in the early months of the war, boosting its economic standing and improving transportation and trade links, not least through military successes in the Black Sea.

The official acknowledged that Ukraine faces ‘a tough fight’ and is ‘under tremendous pressure’ but argued that Ukrainians ‘will become increasingly more confident’ as the new US and other Western assistance begins to arrive.

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