El Pais: Ukraine and the Netherlands pressure Spain to join the “Patriot coalition”
- Author:
- Oleksiy Yarmolenko
- Date:
The authorities of Ukraine and the Netherlands are pressuring Spain to join the "Patriot coalition" and hand over air defense systems to the Ukrainian army.
El Pais writes about it.
They are asking Spain to hand over the Patriot battery to Ukraine. The President Volodymyr Zelensky conveyed his request to Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez at the summit of the European Political Community in Moldova last week.
This issue was also the subject of a conversation between Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, since it is in Turkey that Spain has deployed its Patriot battery.
However, Erdogan is currently opposed to removing the Patriot from his country before the relevant contract expires at the end of this year.
One of the two batteries that Spain has has been located at the Turkish base in Incirlik since 2015, the other is in the autonomous community of Valencia in eastern Spain.
- Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki informed that the heads of government of several European countries promised to provide Ukraine with Patriot air defense systems during negotiations with Volodymyr Zelensky. On June 1, the President Volodymyr Zelensky was in Moldova at the summit of the European Political Community and offered to create a "Patriot coalition" for Ukraine.