Nato Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg on Thursday declined to comment on whether the Patriot air defence system that Germany offered Warsaw after a deadly missile strike in Poland last week should be deployed in Poland or Ukraine.
“I welcome the German offer to strengthen Poland’s air defences by offering to deploy Patriot batteries after the tragic incident last week, in which two people lost their lives,” Stoltenberg told a news conference in Brussels, five days before a meeting of allied foreign ministers in Bucharest.
However, the choice of where to deploy a specific system “remains a national decision,” Mr Stoltenberg said.
Polish Defence Minister suggests placing the air defence system in Ukraine
Polish Defence Minister Mariusz Blaszczak proposed on Wednesday evening that Germany transfer the Patriot system to Ukraine, rather than install it in Poland.
“After new Russian missile attacks, I asked the German side that the Patriot batteries proposed to Poland be passed on to Ukraine and that they be installed on the western border,” he said on Twitter.
This proposal must be “discussed with Nato,” German Defence Minister Christine Lambrecht said in response.
On Monday, the German government offered to supply Warsaw with a Patriot system after a missile explosion killed two people in the Polish village of Przewodow, near the Ukrainian border.
German Patriot anti-aircraft units are already deployed in Slovakia. Berlin intends to keep them there until the end of 2023 and potentially even beyond, according to Lambrecht.
