Poland has no Patriot missiles to spare for Ukraine, foreign minister says
Poland cannot supply Ukraine with Patriot air defense interceptor missiles because it has no spare stocks, Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski said in an interview with the Polish Press Agency (PAP) published on October 19.
Sikorski said the shortage of interceptors had worsened following US strikes on Iran, while Russia was producing more missiles than Ukraine and its allies had interceptors to counter.
“This is a genuine problem,” Sikorski said.
“There are NATO countries that still have such resources to contribute, but Poland is not among them,” he added. “Poland supports Ukraine in every way it can, but in this case we can only join the appeals for countries that have Patriot missiles to share them with Ukraine.”
The comments come as Ukraine faces a shortage of interceptors needed to defend against Russian ballistic missile attacks.
On October 16, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy acknowledged a severe shortage of Patriot missiles and said Ukraine was willing to negotiate deliveries of even small batches of two, five or 10 interceptors.
Sikorski also said the European Union's €90 billion loan for Ukraine had not yet been exhausted, but that European governments would eventually need to revisit the question of using frozen Russian central bank assets to support Kyiv.
He said he did not expect an agreement on the assets before winter.