President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said Ukraine must adapt to the new political realities in the United States after midterm voters handed Democrats control of Congress. He told Ukrainian television channel TSN that Kyiv needs to build dialogue in Washington and hold on to bipartisan support.
Securing Patriot air defence missiles tops his list. “If we don’t solve the Patriot problem, it will get very tough for us,” Zelenskiy said in the interview, broadcast on Thursday.
He said Ukraine needs further aid packages and should receive $16 billion in assistance that he said Washington promised but never delivered. He also said he was working to keep enough F-16 fighter jets operating over the next five to six months.
The US State Department approved a possible sale of 500 Patriot PAC-3 missiles to Ukraine last week, at an estimated $2.1 billion. The missiles are not expected to arrive until the early 2030s, according to Reuters.
US-led talks with Ukraine and Russia on ending the war are scheduled to resume next week in Abu Dhabi. The war has run past four and a half years.
Source: Reuters
