Kyiv (dpa) – In view of the current Russian offensive, Germany’s Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock has urgently appealed for more international support for Ukraine’s air defence. “To protect Ukraine from the hail of Russian missiles and drones, it urgently needs more air defence,” the minister said at the start of her seventh solidarity visit to Ukraine since the Russian war of aggression began in February 2022.
“We must now join forces so that Ukraine can prevail (…) and to ensure that Putin’s troops don’t end up at our own borders soon,” was Baerbock’s appeal to international partner countries, referring to Russian President Vladimir Putin. The global initiative for more air defence that she launched jointly with German Defence Minister Boris Pistorius has raised nearly a billion euros to additionally boost Ukrainian’s air defence capabilities.
The foreign minister promised the people in Ukraine long-term support. Putin “is speculating that we will eventually run out of steam, but we have staying power,” she explained. She added that Germany, along with many other countries from every corner of the world, was standing rock-solid by Ukraine’s side, as the German government would show when it invited the world to the Ukraine Recovery Conference in Berlin in June.
