Ukraine wants Europe to build its own defenses against Russian ballistic missiles instead of leaning on scarce American interceptors, and it has lined up its first major partner to start, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said, according to ZN. He added that Kyiv's parallel drive to develop its own ballistic missiles meets resistance from states beyond Russia. The practical work is meant to begin over the summer.
A coalition to stop the missiles
Zelenskyy spoke in an interview for Ukraine's United News telethon. He said Ukraine is pursuing a European anti-ballistic missile system, the kind of shield designed to knock down incoming missiles, and that Sweden has agreed to be the first of the major partners it needs. A couple more are needed. He expects to firm up the idea over the summer and then move to practical work.
The harder half: stopping a missile
Building a weapon capable of intercepting a ballistic missile is harder than building the missile itself, and only a handful of systems worldwide can do so reliably. The coalition idea originated in Kyiv, where representatives of more than a dozen countries and the NATO Secretary General's office discussed it. The plan is to produce the interceptors in Europe, keeping the effort out of reach of outside political bargaining.
Defense Minister Mykhailo Fedorov, meeting US lawmakers Richard Blumenthal and Jim Himes, said ballistics remain one of the biggest challenges for Ukraine's skies. He stressed the need to keep PAC-2 GEM-T and PAC-3 interceptor missiles flowing, both fired by Patriot batteries, and to expand the PURL mechanism, a NATO arrangement that lets partners buy US weapons for Ukraine.
Ukraine has sent over 600 letters to Washington pressing for stronger air defense, its US ambassador said
Ukraine's own ballistic missile program faces opposition that reaches past Moscow.
"Ukrainian ballistics is unwanted not only by Russia. Russia, for understandable reasons, but not only Russia, also for understandable reasons. The reasons are in business, in competition," Zelenskyy said in the same interview.
No country wants a strong new competitor, he argued, but he vowed to force the difficult idea through.
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