Pentagon: Ukraine to get advanced air defense systems early next month

US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said that Ukraine is expected to receive advanced US air defense systems “early next month,” meeting one of Kyiv’s key demands for military assistance, Report informs referring to The Washington Post.

The Pentagon has previously indicated that it is in the process of procuring two powerful midrange surface-to-air missile systems known as NASAMS that would be delivered to Ukraine within weeks. Austin’s statement Thursday is the first time a senior US official has put a hard date on exactly when Kyiv can expect to receive them.

“Right now what [Ukrainians] need more than anything else… is air defense capability,” Austin said, noting that “we have been pressing hard to get them a NASAMS capability, and we expect that early next month we’ll be able to get them the capability.”

The two systems alone will not be sufficient to provide Ukraine with enough cover to defend against a Russian assault that is increasingly targeting civilian population centers and the infrastructure that supports them - a strategy with potentially devastating consequences as the fight drags into winter.

The United States has plans to send six additional NASAMS air defenses to Ukraine, but those still need to be contracted and built and are probably years away from delivery. It is still unclear whether the Pentagon and its NATO counterparts plan to expedite other air defense systems to Ukraine in the meantime, or on what timeline those might arrive.