The U.S. and NATO allies are racing to assemble air defense shields both for Ukraine and Europe, facing complex issues from timing to getting systems to work together
The U.S. and its NATO allies are racing to assemble air defense shields both for Ukraine and for Europe as a whole, facing down complex issues from timing to getting systems to work together, as bombs rain down on civilians in Kyiv.
At the same time, 14 members of the alliance — plus Finland — announced an ambitious effort on Thursday to build a new, interlinked missile defense system that spreads across the continent, something officials said was critical after seeing the violence Russia has loosed on Ukrainian cities. In announcing the plan, German Defense Minister Christine Lambrecht noted existing “gaps” in European air defense. “We need to fill these gaps quickly, we are living in threatening, dangerous times,” she said.
Kajsa Ollongren, defense minister for the Netherlands, told reporters that “the importance of what we did this morning was saying we know that we need to do more, and we want industry also to do more and to be in front of the development of air defense systems. And we also realize we shouldn’t do it country by country, so we’re joining our forces.”
The Kremlin’s recent appointment of Gen. Sergei Surovikin to lead the war effort has also been noted. “His nickname is ‘General Armageddon’ and he certainly earned it in the air campaign in Syria,” a NATO official told reporters on the sidelines of the meetings Wednesday, speaking on condition of anonymity due to ground rules in effect.
In Ukraine, where Russian forces have already expended most of their precision-guided cruise missiles, the threat to civilians grows with each unguided missile launch from ships in the Black Sea and bombers flying inside Russian airspace.
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