A combat-ready Patriot missile system is flanked by German troops. Axel Heimken/Picture Alliance via Getty Images
Biden said the US is working with Slovakia to equip Ukraine with the S-300 air defense system.
In exchange for the transfer, the US will provide Slovakia with a Patriot missile system.
“Now is no time for complacency,” Biden said, warning that the Russian military attack would continue.
President Joe Biden said on Friday that there was “no time for complacency” when the US announced it was working with NATO ally Slovakia to equip Ukraine with an advanced air defense system, one of the Ukrainian president’s personal requests Volodymyr Zelenskyy answered.
“As the Russian military repositions itself for the next phase of this war, I have directed my administration to continue sparing no effort to identify and provide Ukraine’s military with the advanced weapons capabilities it needs to defend its country,” Biden said in a statement released by the White House.
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin praised Slovakia’s “generosity” in sending Ukraine an S-300 air defense system. He said it was “strong evidence” of the commitment shown by Ukraine’s neighbors as Russia pursued its war. Biden said the US would provide Slovakia with an American-made Patriot missile system in exchange for the transfer.
“This deployment of Patriot capabilities to Slovakia aligns perfectly with our previous efforts to strengthen NATO’s defense capabilities and demonstrate our collective security requirements under Article 5 of the NATO treaty,” Austin said in a statement.
Austin also said the Patriot system will be manned by American troops who will arrive “in the coming days.” Austin said their deployment has no end date as the US and Slovakia study “more permanent air defense solutions.”
Biden said Zelenskyy addressed the S-300 system directly during their conversations with him. The S-300 is a Soviet-era system that can reach altitudes of up to 18 miles, the Washington Post previously reported.
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“Now is no time for complacency,” Biden said. “The Russian military may have failed in its goal of capturing Kyiv, but it continues to inflict horrific acts of violence on the Ukrainian people.”
In an emotional speech to Congress last month, Zelenskyy called on the US to support a no-fly zone in Ukraine. He added that if this is “too much to ask,” then Ukraine needs better anti-aircraft systems like the S-300. “Russia has turned the Ukrainian sky into a source of death for thousands of people,” Zelenskyy said at the time. The US and NATO have opposed a no-fly zone because it would oblige the alliance to shoot down Russian warplanes. This would effectively amount to a declaration of war and trigger a direct confrontation between a number of nuclear powers.
Ever since Russia launched an unprovoked war against Ukraine in late February, it has struggled to make big gains on the ground. The Russian military, which has lost thousands of soldiers since the war began, failed to take Kyiv. Russia is now concentrating its offensive on the eastern Donbass region.
After invading Ukraine and annexing Crimea in 2014, Russia began supporting rebels in a war against Ukrainian forces in the eastern Donbass region. The conflict in Donbass raged for eight years before Russia launched its latest invasion of Ukraine in February. The separatists control about a third of the region, and NATO believes Moscow will conquer the rest of Donbass in the coming days.
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said on Tuesday that Russia would launch a “concentrated” offensive in Donbass.
“We expect another Russian push into eastern and southern Ukraine in the coming weeks in an attempt to capture the entire Donbass and create a land bridge to occupied Crimea,” the NATO chief said.
But Stoltenberg also warned in an interview with NPR on Friday that Russian President Vladimir Putin “has not changed his overall goal, which is to control Ukraine.”
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