Petro Poroshenko: We are making efforts to ensure that the European Union opens new clusters for Ukraine as soon as possible
Petro Poroshenko handed over another batch of Ai-Petri anti-aircraft missile systems to protect Ukrainian positions and critical infrastructure. During a meeting with military specialists, the fifth president also spoke about the results of negotiations with European partners and work on strengthening Ukraine’s air defense.
This was reported by the press service of “European Solidarity”.
Poroshenko noted that in recent days he had held a number of meetings in Europe – in the European Parliament, with the European Commissioner, as well as during the Political Assembly of the European People’s Party. One of the topics of the negotiations was the acceleration of the process of Ukraine’s accession to the EU.
“By the 15th, if Ukraine does its homework, we can expect the opening of two clusters. And two more clusters will remain to be opened to accelerate the process of European integration. This is what European Solidarity is doing,” Poroshenko said.
He also spoke about his meeting with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz. According to Poroshenko, Germany is increasing its assistance to Ukraine by another 1 billion euros and currently provides up to 35% of all European Union assistance.
“We are now trying to improve the quality of draft laws, discuss them with our European partners. And we still maintain cautious optimism that we will be heard,” Poroshenko noted.
Separately, the fifth president reported that work is underway to supply Ukraine with A-29 Super Tucano light attack aircraft, which can strengthen the defense of Ukrainian skies.
Poroshenko emphasized that, against the backdrop of Russian strikes on bridges, hospitals, residential buildings, and critical energy infrastructure facilities, Ukraine needs new means of countering air attacks, including interceptor drones.
“Negotiations are underway regarding aircraft, including the Super Tucano. We are working with our partners in the European Union, who already have contracts, so that these aircraft can confront the enemy as soon as possible. We are negotiating to increase supplies of interceptor missiles for the F-16,” Poroshenko said.
At the same time, the modernization of the Ai-Petri complexes is underway. According to Poroshenko, the new developments have already shown the first results in countering the Russian Shahed and protecting industrial facilities.
“We already have the first very encouraging successes, when the shaheeds fell into the Dnieper without explosions, when they were able to be withdrawn from two industrial facilities, and this was done by the new modernized Ai-Petri. Today we are transferring 10 complexes under the contract to the Armed Forces,” Poroshenko said.
According to him, the production of “Ai-Petri” was transferred to military rails in order to maximize the amount of modernized equipment transferred to the Ukrainian military.