Ramstein 19 is about air defence and aircraft. Expert opinion
15 February 19:19
Yesterday, 14 February, the 19th meeting of the Contact Group on Ukraine’s defence took place in the Ramstein format. There were no high-profile news or statements from the meeting, and the Ukrainian leadership issued a very dry message that can be described as “everything will be on schedule and in accordance with the agreements”. However, experts warn against a negative assessment of the online meeting and argue that the main thing agreed upon at this stage is air defence systems and ammunition for them. And also about aircraft.
“For me, the most important news is that Ukraine will receive a large number of air defence systems. This is important because we have been buying air defence systems, among other things, with money from the US. We see the situation in America, and in this context, yesterday’s announcement that we will receive a large number of anti-aircraft missiles is great news for me,”
– political analyst Viktor Taran told in an exclusive commentary.
Political expert Igor Reiterovich agrees with him:
“Yes, we didn’t see any large packages, but we couldn’t have seen them, because now we are talking about the supply of missiles for air defence, which are important to us – this was the agreement. There could be no breakthrough there, because we did not come with breakthrough issues.”
He believes that now that the current air defence issues have been resolved, Ramstein will move forward.
“I think we will get additional packages from individual countries in the near future before the Munich conference and a little later, before 24 February. Today, for example, Spain said about armoured personnel carriers. I think that in about a week there will be reports of new packages,” he added,
– he added.
The parties stressed that the process of transferring F-16 aircraft to Ukraine is on schedule, experts say, and this is the second good news from Ramstein.
“The second good news that was said was that F-16s will appear in the Ukrainian skies in the spring. So everything is going according to plan. We don’t know anything else and we don’t need to know anything else,”
– taran adds.
Author: Irina Shevchenko.
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