The German government is providing another Patriot air defense system to strengthen Kiev, following months of requests from Ukraine, while a commander in the embattled country said the situation on the front line was becoming more difficult.
The German air defense system comes from Bundeswehr stocks and is to be delivered immediately, the German Defense Ministry announced in Berlin on Saturday.
So far, Germany has delivered two Patriot systems to Ukraine and the system has proven its worth in the fight against Russian aggression, according to the ministry.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky thanked the German Chancellor Olaf Scholz for the Patriot system and other missiles for the Patriots already in use in Ukraine.
“Thank you, Olaf, for your leadership,” he wrote on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter. “This is a true sign of support for Ukraine at a critical time for us.”
He also called on leaders of other countries to follow Germany’s example.
Berlin’s decision comes after efforts by the Minister of Defense Boris Pistorius and Minister of Foreign Affairs Annalena Baerbock to pressure partners for more air defense systems.
“Russian terror against Ukrainian cities and the country’s infrastructure is causing immeasurable suffering,” Pistorius said, according to the press release.
Moscow’s attacks are endangering the population’s energy supply and destroying industrial facilities that are important for the operational readiness of the Ukrainian armed forces, he added.
“With our support for Ukraine, we are going as far as we can justify in terms of our own operational readiness. Even before this decision, I was in favor of acquiring new equipment as quickly as possible and we are working full steam ahead in follow-up acquisitions,” Pistorius said.
Russian president Vladimir Putin wants to destroy Ukraine, according to Baerbock. “Every day, your missiles and drones destroy what people need to live. With the additional Patriot system, we stand with the people of Ukraine and reinforce the protective shield over their cities,” she said. “And we are emphasizing that we are taking responsibility.”
Zelensky has been calling for more Patriot defense systems for months in order to better protect the country’s airspace against Russian missile and drone attacks.
Scholz also reaffirmed Germany’s solidarity with Ukraine in a telephone conversation with Zelensky and discussed ways to further strengthen Ukraine’s air defenses.
Scholz and Zelensky agreed that more efforts were needed from partners, a German government spokesman said. They also discussed a high-level international peace conference on Ukraine in Switzerland in the summer and the Ukraine Reconstruction Conference to be held in Berlin.
On the ground, the Ukrainian military highlighted front-line fighting and called for better technology to help Kiev’s forces defend themselves from Kremlin attacks.
“The situation on the eastern front has worsened significantly in recent days,” Commander-in-Chief Oleksandr Syrskyi wrote in Telegram.
He said this was due to increased offensive efforts by Russian troops following elections in Russia that gave Putin another term in office.
The situation in the cities of Lyman, Bakhmut and Pokrovsk in the Donetsk region is particularly sensitive, Syrskyi said. In Pokrovsk in particular, west of the town of Avdiivka, which was only captured by the Russians at the beginning of the year, the Russian military is trying to break through defense lines using dozens of tanks.
Syrskyi called for the Ukrainian army to be armed with high-tech weapons such as drones. Only with technological innovations would it be possible to equalize the numerical superiority of the Russian attackers.
Meanwhile, several people were injured in rocket attacks in the Russian-occupied city of Luhansk.
Russian politician Vladimir Rogov, chairman of the We Are Together with Russia movement, wrote on his Telegram channel on Saturday that there were missile attacks near the bus station and a machine factory.
Three civilians were injured and several residential buildings were damaged, he said.
Ukrainian media, on the other hand, reported that the attack targeted a military unit and a set of military vehicles near the factory.
Further west, in the small town of Tokmak in the Zaporizhzhya region, which was also captured by the Russians during the war, the death toll rose to 10 after an attack on Friday.
Two more bodies were found under the rubble of a residential building, the Moscow-appointed governor for the occupied part of the Zaporizhzhya region, Yevgeny Balitsky, announced on Telegram.
Two people were still missing, he wrote, and 18 people were being treated in hospital for injuries.
Russia targets Ukrainian energy facilities. In this context, Kiev began the construction of two more nuclear reactors in the west of the country.
The Interfax-Ukraine news agency reported that the foundation stone for reactor units 5 and 6 of the Khmelnytskyi NPP was laid in the presence of Energy Minister German Galushchenko and US Ambassador to Kiev Bridget Brink.
In contrast to other types of power plants, Russia has so far spared nuclear facilities with its drone and missile attacks – also because it is aware that this could cause a nuclear catastrophe that is difficult to calculate in terms of scale.
The units are being built in cooperation with North American nuclear energy company Westinghouse Electric Company. They are pressurized water reactors of the AP1000 type with a useful life of at least 60 years, according to the company.
