BULBOACA, Moldova: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky urged his European allies on Thursday to support Ukraine with Patriot air defence systems and modern fighter jets.
"A coalition of Patriots that will put an end to Russian blackmail by ballistic missiles, and a coalition of modern fighter jets that will prove that terror against our citizens has no chance" are "decisive components," Zelensky said.
He addressed close to 50 fellow European leaders at a summit held in the Moldovan town of Bulboaca, some 20 kilometres away from the Ukrainian border.
Kiev has already received some Patriot air defence systems and Soviet-made fighter jets, and some European countries agreed to train Ukrainian pilots on modern jets.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz stressed the importance of air defence systems already provided by Berlin, arriving at the meeting.
This was particularly visible now where "there are so many attacks on the part of the Russian Federation with missiles, with aircraft, with cruise missiles," he said.
Most recently, a Russian missile barrage on Kiev early on Thursday killed at least three people, including two children, according to Ukrainian authorities.
Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte, whose country is supplying Patriot systems and has agreed to train pilots on US-made F 16 jets, expressed support for Zelensky's call.
More countries who own Patriot systems need to get involved and supply those to Kiev, Rutte said, adding that he wants to try to convince other countries. "I don't need to tell you how much is at stake," he added.
Meanwhile, a nine-year-old girl, her mother and another woman were killed in a Russian missile strike on Kyiv on Thursday after the air raid shelter they rushed to failed to open, witnesses said. Police opened a criminal investigation into the three deaths near a medical clinic in the Desnyanskyi district of Kyiv after the 18th attack on the capital since the start of May.
Zelensky also stressed Ukraine's willingness to join the European Union and Nato.
"We need just peace. That is why every European country that borders Russia, and that does not want Russia to tear them apart, should be afull member of the EU and Nato," he said.
Russia is afraid of Nato and tries to swallow only those who are outside of the common security space, he added.
Close to 50 European leaders met on Thursday in Moldova with topics including the continent's security, connectivity and energy issues on the agenda.
The meeting, to which Russia and Belarus were not invited, follows upon last year's French-led initiative to gather leaders of European Union and non-member countries in Prague to discuss current political challenges.
The location of the summit is highly symbolic as Bulboaca is in the immediate vicinity of the border with war-torn Ukraine and Moldova's breakaway region of Transnistria, where Russian soldiers have been stationed since the 1990s.
International observers have repeatedly warned that Moscow could use unrest in the region caused by the invasion of Ukraine as an excuse to escalate the situation.
A top Russian intelligence official expressed annoyance at the meeting. "The West is actively pushing Moldova to take part in the Ukrainian conflict," Alexander Bortnikov, the director of Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB), said on Thursday, according to state news agency TASS.. - dpa
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