Ukraine wants Poland to protect its skies near border

Polish air defences could protect the airspace over Ukraine’s border regions, the deputy speaker of Ukraine’s Supreme Council told her Polish counterpart in Vilnius on Saturday.

The speaker of the Polish Senate, Małgorzata Kidawa-Błońska, the speaker of the Lithuanian parliament, Viktorija Čmilytė-Nielsen, and the deputy speaker of the Ukrainian Supreme Council, Olena Kondratyuk, met in Vilnius on Saturday to celebrate two Lithuanian holidays: Statehood Day and Song Day.

“If NATO is not ready to admit Ukraine during the war, we have to demand that the allies ensure sufficient measures to stop and overcome the enemy,” Kondratyuk wrote on Facebook.

Kondratyuk also said that she had asked Kidawa-Błońska for Warsaw to consider using Polish air defences to defend the airspace over the regions of Ukraine on the Polish border.

She also asked Čmilytė-Nielsen to present this request at Monday’s meeting of parliamentary speakers of NATO countries, which takes place the day before the start of the NATO summit in Washington.

Kondratyuk expressed her satisfaction that her Lithuanian and Polish colleagues “Viktorija and Małgorzata are proponents of the idea that Ukraine should be a member of NATO and the EU.”

Ukraine joining NATO before the war ends seems highly unlikely, as NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg has reiterated on several occasions, although in late April during his visit to Kyiv he outlined “Ukraine’s rightful place is in NATO” and noted the country’s “irreversible path” towards membership.

Stoltenberg has also repeatedly ruled out sending NATO troops to fight in Ukraine, saying the Alliance is not involved in the conflict. (Aleksandra Krzysztoszek | Euractiv.pl)

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