More than 50 countries will gather on the sidelines of a NATO meeting in Brussels on Wednesday to discuss bolstering Ukraine’s air defense, two days after Russian missiles rained down on cities across the country, including the capital Kyiv, Al Arabiya reports.
Advanced air defense systems are designed to protect entire cities from air attacks. Russian air raids on Monday killed 19 people in Ukraine, wounded more than 100 and knocked out power supplies across the country.
On Tuesday, Ukraine received the first of four IRIS-T SLM air defense systems Germany promised to supply, a German defense ministry source said.
NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg, speaking ahead of a two-day meeting of the alliance’s defense ministers on October 12-13 in Brussels, urged allies to provide additional air defense systems.
He called Russia’s missile attacks a sign of weakness and a result of the fact that President Vladimir Putin was running out of alternatives.
“The reality is that they’re not able to make progress on the battlefield. Russia is actually losing on the battlefield,” Stoltenberg said.
“Ukraine has the momentum and continues to make significant gains while Russia is increasingly resorting to horrific and indiscriminate attacks on civilians and critical infrastructure.”
After an explosion on the Crimean Bridge, Putin on Monday warned Ukraine that there would be a harsh response if there were any further “terrorist” attacks, which he referred to as targeting Russia’s “critical civilian infrastructure.”
