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Spain will provide Ukraine with €1bn in military aid this year after the Spanish prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, and Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, met in Madrid to sign an “enormously important”, decade-long defence and security deal.
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The bilateral deal was agreed two days after Russia’s onslaught in the north-eastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv killed 18 people, and as EU leaders grow increasingly exasperated with Hungary’s efforts to block aid to Ukraine.
“[This deal] will allow Ukraine to boost its capabilities, including its essential air defence systems to protect its civilians, cities and infrastructure, which are still suffering indiscriminate attacks as seen this weekend in Kharkiv,” Sánchez told a press conference after the signing.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
The bilateral deal was agreed two days after Russia’s onslaught in the north-eastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv killed 18 people, and as EU leaders grow increasingly exasperated with Hungary’s efforts to block aid to Ukraine.
“[This deal] will allow Ukraine to boost its capabilities, including its essential air defence systems to protect its civilians, cities and infrastructure, which are still suffering indiscriminate attacks as seen this weekend in Kharkiv,” Sánchez told a press conference after the signing.
Zelenskiy, who recently issued a desperate plea for world leaders to attend a “peace summit” next month in Switzerland, said he had briefed Sánchez on the situation on the frontline and was grateful to Spain for its “tangible and truly life-saving support”.
But he said Ukraine still urgently needed another seven US-made Patriot air defence systems to stop Russia using Soviet-era glide bombs to hit the power grid and civilian areas.
Lithuania’s foreign minister, Gabrielius Landsbergis, told reporters in Brussels that analysis showed Hungary had blocked nearly half of all declarations on Ukraine since Russia invaded in 2022.
He also said he believed a mechanism that would allow the EU to remove Hungary’s ability to vote on bloc-wide foreign policy decisions was not a viable option because it requires unanimity.
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