Slovakia has tentatively agreed to provide Ukraine with a major Soviet-era air defense system to help defend against Russian air strikes, according to three sources familiar with the matter.
But the United States and NATO are still struggling to fill the country’s own defensive capabilities, and the transfer is not yet guaranteed.
According to two of the sources, Slovakia – one of three NATO allies that has the defense systems in question – wants assurances that the systems will be replaced immediately.
If a country supplies its S-300s, the supplying country is likely to receive the US-made Patriot air defense missile system to fill the capacity it would be giving up, according to two other sources familiar with the negotiations.
Germany and the Netherlands have already publicly announced that they are sending Patriot missiles to Slovakia. But integrating a complex new air defense system into a country’s existing military architecture, as well as training its forces to use it, can take time, a source warned.
The effort to get more S-300s into Ukrainian hands comes as Congress pressures the Biden administration to help Ukraine get the air defense system. Lawmakers from both parties, who listened to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in a speech Wednesday morning, urged the US to do more to help Ukraine get the weapons it seeks, especially after the government objected. , the week before, to a plan to supply Ukraine with 29 Polish MiG jets.
Representative Michael McCaul, the top Republican on the US House Foreign Affairs Committee, publicly hinted on Wednesday that the US has made progress in Ukraine’s access to additional S-300s, an anti-aircraft weapons system that congressional sources say Ukraine is already operating effectively against Russian attack.
“I’ve been working really hard on this,” McCaul told Jim Sciutto of CNN. “I’m proud to say they have S-300s coming in now.”
A McCaul aide later said he was referring to the S-300 systems that have been owned and operated by Ukraine for years. These systems are already in the country.
THE CNN previously reported that the State Department is working to identify which countries currently have S-300s, and to determine how they can be transferred to Ukraine.
THE CNN reported on Wednesday that other Soviet-era air defense systems, including the SA8, had already been deployed to Ukraine.
“People talk about a no-fly zone, they can create their own if we give them the military equipment and the weapons,” McCaul noted.
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin is scheduled to travel to Slovakia later this week after attending the NATO Defense Ministerial Meeting in Brussels.
“At the request of President Zelensky, we have identified and are assisting Ukraine to acquire additional long-range anti-aircraft systems and ammunition for those systems,” U.S. President Joe Biden said Wednesday as part of comments detailing the new assistance. of security.
Some US allies are also extremely leery of making their contributions to Ukraine public, multiple sources told CNN. Bulgaria and Greece also have more modern S-300 systems in question.
Greece’s system is a different model from those currently operated by Ukraine, raising questions about the need for additional training to be useful.
The State Department and the Slovak Embassy in Washington declined to comment. THE CNN contacted the National Security Council and the Department of Defense for comment.
Source: CNN Brasil
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