“The United States and Europe have enough strength to stop this terror.” Volodymyr Zelensky said that the day before NATO leaders opened their summit in Ankara, hours after Russia hit Kyiv with “68 missiles and 351 attack drones.”
The strike killed at least 15 people in the capital and 8 more in the surrounding region, and injured at least 56, Time reported on July 6. Zelensky pointed at allied stockpiles. As “Patriot missiles remain in our allies’ stockpiles,” he said, “Russia is only encouraged.”
Speech to the leaders
He took that case into the room on July 7. WION reported that his address centred on Patriot interceptors, and on a hard fact from the previous day’s attack: “Ukraine failed to intercept a single ballistic missile.” Production, Zelensky told the leaders, “has still not been scaled up to the level actually required to protect people from ballistic terror.”
He also asked NATO to help Ukraine build its own air defence manufacturing. Secretary General Mark Rutte backed continued assistance, saying “Ukraine is changing the dynamics on the battlefield.”
There was a catch, and WION spelled it out. Patriot systems are scarce, several allies had already handed batteries to Ukraine, and pledges made in Ankara would probably still fall short of what Kyiv needs.
The Trump meeting
President Trump was due to meet Zelensky on the summit sidelines. Before the summit, both men had spoken by phone on Saturday, a call Zelensky described as “very good.” Trump also spent about 90 minutes on the line with Vladimir Putin that day.
ABC News reported the Wednesday meeting produced one concrete result. “We’re going to give a license to you to make Patriots,” Trump told Zelenskyy. Interceptors themselves were a different matter. “We have Patriots, but we don’t have that many. We need them for ourselves, too,” he said.
Trump also said that “we’re getting much closer than people realize” on ending the war. Zelenskyy, for his part, had told a defence industry forum on Tuesday that Ukraine needs “as quick as possible, as much as possible, missiles for Patriot systems.”
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said before the summit that air defence would be raised at the NATO meeting, and that further support “is coming very soon.”
Sources
- Zelensky Urges 'Strong Decisions' at NATO Summit After Russia Launches Another Deadly Attack on Kyiv
- Zelensky's NATO Speech: Key Demands and Challenges
- Trump Gives Ukraine OK to Produce Patriot Missiles as War with Russia Drags On
