Thursday said NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg be more cautious on the heated question of whether Germany should supply Ukraine with the Patriot air defense system.
The background is that Germany offered to supply Poland with Patriots after the missile attack that happened in November. But Poland replied that Germany could rather send patriots to Ukraine. Earlier, Stoltenberg said this is the type of decision that needs to be made by each individual country, in this case Germany.
However, Germany has not decided how to respond to Poland’s appeal, but said it is a type of decision that needs to be coordinated with NATO member states.
At the same time, the former president of Russia, Dmitry Medvedevhe threatened that if NATO supplies Ukraine with patriots and personnel to operate the air defense system, NATO will immediately become a legitimate target for the Russian military forces.
Stoltenberg’s claim
During the press conference, Stoltenberg was asked what he really meant when he said that such a decision must be up to each individual country and whether he believed patriots could be deployed in Ukraine.
– There is an ongoing dialogue and process in Poland about this, so I think it’s too early to draw any conclusions. At the same time, I think it is important to distinguish between the discussion of whether Germany should help Poland strengthen its air defenses and the discussion of providing Ukraine with air defenses, Stoltenberg replied and continued:
– Our allies are ready to step up their support for Ukraine and provide them with even more air defense. But it is important to understand that it is not just about providing new air defense systems. It is also about ensuring that the systems that have already been handed over to Ukraine can be operated.
– Much bigger problem
Stoltenberg added:
– For already deployed systems, ammunition, spare parts and maintenance are required. Therefore, I believe we need to separate the offer of three Patriots batteries to Poland from the much larger and all-encompassing problem of making sure that NATO allies support Ukraine with air defenses. Our allies have already done this to a large extent, including Germany.
Chancellor Scholz briefly commented that Germany’s offer to Poland is still valid and referred to what Stoltenberg said about the discussions on the matter which are still ongoing in Poland.
