Long-range air defense is key to pushing Russia back to its borders, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Oct. 11 on the 594th day since Russia invaded Ukraine for the second time since 2014.
“Air defense is a significant part of the answer to the question of when this war will end and whether it will end justly for Ukraine, and I am confident that it can be so. It will be so,” Zelenskyy said in English, as he spoke from a script during a 25 minute televised appearance before the press of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group in Brussels alongside U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Air Force Gen. Charles Q. Brown, and NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg.
“Everyone can see what the protection of the sky gives,” Zelenskyy said. “It is guaranteed that there will be normal life in the cities. There will be an economy. There will be people. Long-range air defense can also ensure the functioning of our corridors in the Black Sea and the Danube region. Air defense will ensure that Russian jets will not be able to approach our Ukrainian borders, and therefore it will solve the issue of Russian guided bombs. And we all need this kind of push now, a step forward in our defense–air defense.”
Austin announced a new $200 million defense aid package to Ukraine, and he said that it includes AIM-9 missiles for a “new air defense system that we will soon deliver to Ukraine, as well as artillery and rocket ammunition, precision aerial munitions, anti-tank weapons, and equipment to counter Russian drones.”
Austin said that the latest package, if approved, would mean the U.S. has provided $43.9 billion in defense aid to Ukraine since the Russian invasion on Feb. 24 last year.
RTX [RTX] builds the AIM-9 and has demonstrated the AIM-9M can provide short range air defense when fired from the U.S. Army Multi-Mission Launcher. DoD has also provided the Boeing [BA] Avenger air defense system to Ukraine.
Austin also said that Germany’s latest $1.1 billion military offering to Ukraine includes RTX Patriot air defense systems, 11 Krauss-Maffei Wegmann Leopard tanks, and two more IRIS-T, 25-mile range air defense systems by Diehl Defence. In May, Diehl said that it had delivered its second IRIS-T to Ukraine since late 2022.
Austin also said that the new aid for Ukraine includes a Bulgarian offering of the Russian-built S-300 long-range air defense system.
In a news conference, Austin said that Ukrainian pilots have begun to receive F-16 training in Europe and the U.S., and that the earliest that the Lockheed Martin [LMT] fighter may be in Ukraine is next spring.
Other items in the new, proposed U.S. military offering for Ukraine include ammunition for the Lockheed Martin High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems, better known as HIMARS; RTX Tube-Launched, Optically-Tracked, Wire-Guided (TOW) anti-tank missiles; 155mm and 105mm artillery rounds; and AT-4 anti-armor systems by the Saab Group‘s Saab Bofors Dynamics subsidiary.