KYIV — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Friday he wants allies to start shooting down Russian missiles and drones over the west of Ukraine.
“If the allies shoot down missiles together in the sky of the Middle East, why is there still no decision to shoot down drones and missiles over Ukraine? Even when those drones fly towards the EU,” Zelenskyy said during a conference organized by the Victor Pinchuk Foundation in Kyiv.
“When we raise this issue during the negotiations, the partners don’t even say they are working on it like they say about everything else … they just change the subject. They are scared to even tell us ‘they are working on it.’ And so far, only Belarus has been seen shooting down Russian drones,” Zelenskyy added, referring to Russian ally Minsk taking out some stray kamikaze drones.
Ukraine said there was a double standard earlier this year when Kyiv saw a wide coalition of Western countries helping Israel to repel a massive Iranian attack of missiles and drones.
Ukraine has been suffering huge Russian missile and drone strikes almost daily, with some targeting gas storage sites near the EU border, while some stray drones have even flown into the territory of Romania, Poland and now Latvia.
But Kyiv’s partners so far see shooting down missiles over Ukraine as them more explicitly entering the war and potentially escalating the conflict with Russian leader Vladimir Putin.
Polish President Andrzej Duda said on Aug. 24 that NATO countries are continuing to discuss joint protection of the Ukrainian sky from Russian attacks. But German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said he sees that as being out of the question and, so far, the U.S. has been in lockstep.