For his first official visit to Spain, Volodymyr Zelensky will not leave Madrid empty-handed. This Monday, May 27, the Spanish government concluded a bilateral security agreement with kyiv to support Ukraine in its war against Russia. This agreement “includes a commitment of military aid for 2024 of one billion euros which will allow Ukraine to strengthen its defense capabilities” in the face of the Russian offensive, declared Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez during a a joint press conference with the Ukrainian president. “We will be alongside Ukraine as long as it takes,” he added.
According to the Spanish newspaper El País, this agreement must notably include the delivery of a second batch of Patriot anti-aircraft missiles, which will be added to the half-dozen already supplied in April. These key munitions are requested day after day by the Ukrainian army so that it can defend its skies against the incessant bombings by the Russian army against its civilian infrastructure, particularly in recent weeks around Kharkiv, the country’s second city. 19 second-hand Leopard battle tanks are also to be delivered by Madrid to Ukraine, according to the agreement.
Spain, small European contributor for kyiv
However, always specify El País, the heart of this new security agreement lies in new weapons directly manufactured by the Spanish industrial fabric, whether artillery shells, anti-drone systems, tactical vehicles, reconnaissance equipment or even lances. -rockets, among others. Pedro Sánchez himself also received the directors of the main Spanish defense companies last March, and asked them to make efforts to quickly respond to Ukraine’s needs in the face of the Russian invasion. Statements which are reminiscent of those of Emmanuel Macron with French defense industrialists.
Because if this defense agreement signed between Spain and Ukraine is the tenth of its kind, according to Pedro Sánchez, Spain has not yet stood out for the level of its military support for kyiv. According to the Kiel Institute, a German research center which lists the weapons promised and delivered to Ukraine since the Russian invasion on February 24, 2022, Spain has until now been far from the rest of its European counterparts. Thus, as of February 29, Madrid had only provided the equivalent of 330 million euros in military aid, while France was at 2.7 billion euros, the United Kingdom at 5.2 billion. euros, and Germany at 10 billion. And even taking into account the European Union’s aid packages for Ukraine, to which Spain obviously contributes, its level of spending remained so far lower than countries like Sweden, Denmark or even the Canada.
From Madrid, Volodymyr Zelensky obviously welcomed the signing of this new agreement very positively, thanking Spain for “its vital help in these difficult times of war” and describing Madrid as a “reliable partner”. “You did not remain indifferent when Russian missiles began to destroy our towns and villages and kill our children,” he added. But the Ukrainian president also took this opportunity to once again call on the West to force Russia into peace “by all means”, while kyiv insists on obtaining the right to use Western weapons to strike on the Russian territory.