“I am sure that Ukraine will raise an argument that if one non-NATO country has been provided with air defense when attacked by a hostile adversary, why should Ukraine be treated differently? Given the dire and urgent situation that Ukraine now faces, that argument is rather convincing.”
The show of airborne prowess by Western allies and their partners in the Middle East — which included rushing fighter jets to knock down cruise missiles and Shahed drones headed for Israel — proved the effectiveness of Israel’s missile defense system when combined with some of the world’s most advanced aircraft.
But it also pointed to a yawning difference in the way Western powers treat Israel compared to Ukraine.
More than two years after Russia’s full-scale invasion, Ukraine continues to be targeted by missile and drone attacks that frequently overwhelm the country’s diminishing air defense capacities, leading to the battering of Kharkiv, a city near the Ukraine-Russia border, the loss of frontline towns held by Ukraine until recently, as well the destruction of a key power plant last week.
While Germany has committed to sending one additional Patriot missile defense system to shore up Ukraine’s aerial defense capacity, and four European countries have pledged to send some 45 F16 fighter jets to Ukraine, Western powers have never offered to activate their own missile defense systems or send their own aircraft into Ukrainian skies to fend off the threat.
Asked why Britain couldn’t offer the same type of support it gave Israel to Ukraine, British Foreign Secretary David Cameron told LBC radio on Thursday that doing so would represent a “dangerous escalation.”