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The Ukrainian Air Force has backed a Polish proposal in which Germany hands over to Ukraine the Patriot missile batteries it had initially offered to Poland.
The German government offered to send Poland the US-made air-defence system to help it secure its airspace after a missile crashed near a Polish village close to the Ukrainian border, killing two people last week.
But on Wednesday, the Polish defence minister asked Germany to give the Patriots to Ukraine instead.
“After further Russian missile attacks, I asked the German side to transfer the Patriot batteries proposed to Poland to Ukraine and deploy them at the western border. This will save Ukraine from further casualties and blackouts and increase security at our eastern border,”
Mariusz Błaszczak wrote on Twitter.
The minister’s move is in line with the opinion expressed by the ruling party leader, Jarosław Kaczyński, in an interview with PAP earlier on Wednesday.
Commenting on the Polish initiative, Yuriy Ihnat, spokesman for the Air Forces Command of the Armed Forces of Ukraine said that the deployment of Patriot systems in the west of Ukraine would strengthen the security of the airspace of both Ukraine and the whole of Europe
“And why in Poland? You can deploy it in western Ukraine (…) This is a question for our partners, what steps are they ready to take to defend the Ukrainian border and Ukrainian territory and Europe, to ensure airspace security on the outskirts of Europe,”
Ihnat said, as cited by the RBK-Ukraine news portal.
Commenting on the Polish proposal to hand over the Patriot launchers to Ukraine, Mateusz Morawiecki, Polish prime minister, told a press conference on Thursday that this is “a good proposal for the protection of the Polish-Ukrainian border.”
Asked whether the defence minister had consulted about the decision he said that “of course, there were talks on how to make the best use of Germany’s proposal to protect the area that is at risk as much as possible.”