NATO allies announce long-term support for Ukraine, including Patriot systems
Support for Ukraine was a major consensus between allies on the second day of the NATO Summit in Washington, as partners agreed to shift their focus to providing long-term support.
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00:00NATO allies say their alliance will only survive if Russia is defeated in its war against Ukraine.
00:06The 32 countries announced a series of new pledges to Kiev as Russia continues to pound
00:11civilian areas, including targeting a children's hospital at the start of the week.
00:16They include five new Patriot air defence systems and a joint announcement by the US,
00:21the Netherlands and Denmark that the first F-16 fighter jets would be in the hands of
00:25Ukrainian military pilots by this summer.
00:29Well I think the Patriot systems are pretty important in terms of they're able to intercept
00:33hypersonic missiles, sort of the things that are most damaging Ukrainian civilian and critical
00:39national infrastructure.
00:40But it's not just about the launchers, it's about the number of interceptors, it's about
00:44the ammunition as well and that's going to have to be a continuous requirement for the
00:48Ukrainians.
00:49On the F-16s, again, they'll be very, very valuable to the Ukrainians but they're not
00:54going to be a game changer, they're not going to enable in and of themselves for Ukraine
00:58to take back much territory any time soon.
01:01We saw just horrifying images, attacks on hospitals, like where are we on the battlefield
01:06in the east and just generally speaking is it as dire as it has been a few months ago?
01:10Yeah and I think to deal with the strike first, I mean it was pretty much deliberate policy
01:15by the Kremlin to strike on Monday ahead of the summit to try and get onto the new cycle
01:19and show those within Europe who are more timid towards Ukrainian membership and a greater
01:25role for NATO within the war, to say this is what escalation might look like in your
01:30own countries.
01:31I think that's probably backfired in the sense of the Patriot systems and the other air defence
01:35systems being provided and NATO actually standing up and saying, you know, that is absolutely
01:40not acceptable.
01:41If you give them the ammunition and the capabilities, they're more than happy to hold the ground,
01:46they're more than happy to take large-scale casualties, but the Russians are taking more.
01:51In the last six weeks, it seems that an average of about 1,200 Russians have either been died
01:56or wounded on the battlefield.
01:59That's a battle group a day, but they're still on the offensive, so it just shows how difficult
02:04the position on the ground at the moment is.
02:06Well, one of the ambitions for this summit was to make permanent or institutionalised
02:10NATO's military support for Ukraine so that in the future, the Ukrainian army can have
02:15a reliable source of weapons, of air defence systems and for soldiers to be properly trained.
02:20But another reason is that if Donald Trump does end up back in the White House, he'll
02:24find it harder to end or reverse Ukraine's NATO trajectory.