The United States will provide Ukraine with additional air defense equipment, but this is still not enough to tightly close the Ukrainian sky.

This was stated by Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council Oleksiy Danilov in an interview with Ukrainian Radio, commenting on the results of the meeting between President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin.

According to Danilov, "everyone involved in this issue is working 24 hours a day to resolve it."

"As soon as there are reports that an attack is underway, 100% of all means of destruction that our Armed Forces, our security and defense sector have, immediately go on round-the-clock duty. But we still do not have enough air defense systems to be able to tightly close the entire territory of our country so that not a single Shahed and not a single missile hits the objects they are aimed at. And today the president is working on one of the main issues — air defense and means of destruction from missiles for our infrastructure. Because we are approaching the winter period, when lowering the temperature will be important for the lives of our people, so that they live in more or less suitable conditions," the NSDC Secretary said.

According to Danilov, we understand all these challenges, and the Russians also understand that the issue of attacking our energy facilities, our infrastructure is a priority for them.

The issue of air defense for Ukraine was one of the main issues during the meeting between Volodymyr Zelenskyy and US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin. Commenting on the results of the talks, the Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council noted that "there will definitely be news."

"Additional air defense will be supplied to the territory of our country. It's bound to happen. Will it be enough for us to close the entire territory of our country? Unfortunately, today I can say that not yet. And that's why our president, our ambassadors who are on the territory of partner countries, all those who are involved in this issue, are working 24 hours a day to close this issue. But it's not simple. We have a large territory of our country — 603 thousand square kilometers, which must be tightly closed. I name the territory, including Crimea, which will definitely return home, including those territories that are currently temporarily occupied," he says.

According to Danilov, "in every package allocated by the United States, there is a part of air defense. However, these are not only the complexes that carry out the destruction, but also the missiles that must be used to carry out the destruction. And that's why we almost didn't have such things when the United States didn't directly provide air defence assistance in its packages."

Background: US President Joe Biden told Volodymyr Zelenskyy that the United States would provide Ukraine with a small number of long-range ATACMS missiles for the first time.

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