Germany's initiative to strengthen Ukraine's air defense has failed, Politico reports. Despite Berlin's promise to hand over three Patriot installations and months of efforts to persuade allies to join the initiative, only a few countries responded.
Spain, Greece and Poland refused. Romania promised to think. Switzerland ordered five new installations, but did not talk about plans to transfer something to Ukraine.
"There is no European leadership and unity among the main actors. The sense of urgency has not increased, rather, there has been a sense of relief that the Americans are once again fulfilling their obligations," said Nico Lange, former chief of staff of the German Ministry of Defense, and now a researcher at the CEPA think tank.
One of the reasons for the reluctance of Western countries to send Patriots to Ukraine, experts cite their high cost - about a billion dollars per installation and millions for each missile. Also, countries do not want to weaken their own air defense, since the production of new Patriots takes a long time.
