Spain to provide additional Hawk air defense battery to Ukraine
Spain will provide Ukraine with another Hawk air defense battery in September, Spanish Defense Minister Margarita Robles said during a video call with her Ukrainian counterpart, Rustem Umerov, on July 24.
Ukraine has been increasingly calling on its allies to bolster its sky shield amid unceasing Russian aerial strikes against population centers and infrastructure sites.
During the call, Robles also said that her country had already trained 5,000 Ukrainian military service members and hosted Ukrainian orphans and relatives of soldiers.
Developed in the U.S. in the late 1950s, the Hawk is a medium-range, surface-to-air guided missile that provides air defense coverage against low-to-medium-altitude aircraft.
Madrid provided Ukraine with the first battery of six Hawk launchers in the fall of 2022 and has since sent additional firing units. The U.S. provided the necessary equipment and recently pledged to supply new Hawk missiles.
According to a bilateral agreement between Kyiv and Madrid signed in May, Spain will provide Ukraine with the support of 1 billion euros ($1.1 billion) in 2024 and 5 billion euros ($5.4 billion) by 2027.
Dmytro Basmat
