Volodymyr Zelenskyy has argued for Ukraine to be allowed to join Nato at its annual summit – saying it would be wrong to exclude a country that had built up strong defences in its long struggle against the Russian invasion.
The Ukrainian president said his country had developed almost all the weapons it needed, and now only required European help in developing an alternative to the US Patriots to protect against ballistic missile attack.
“I have a question for you. Do you really believe it? Do you really believe it would be right to leave outside Nato, a country and a people with this level of defensive capability?” Zelenskyy said at Nato’s defence industry forum.
“If we already have these capabilities, if Ukrainians already know how to fight like this, then it does make sense for these capabilities to become a part of the alliance’s collective defence that would make all of us stronger,” he added.
Ukraine is in the fifth year of fighting off the invasion by its larger neighbour. The conflict has reached the point where Russia’s rate of advance has ground to a crawl and Kyiv is able to attack economic targets as far afield as Siberia.
A senior Nato official briefed that Russian forces had advanced 3.79 sq km a day in June, a quarter the rate a year ago, and that the invaders were continuing to suffer 30,000 to 35,000 casualties a month.
However, Ukraine’s aspiration to become a member of Nato remains far off, with allies including the US not interested in allowing a country at war with nuclear-armed Russia to become part of the western military alliance.
The Ukrainian president will be a guest at a leaders’ dinner on Tuesday evening at the Turkish presidential palace compound in Ankara, and is due to meet Donald Trump on Wednesday lunchtime for a bilateral meeting.
Trump spoke separately to Zelenskyy and the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, at the weekend amid growing hopes the US president would renew mediation efforts to end the war. “I think they both want to make a deal. … I think we’re going to get it settled, hopefully soon,” Trump said as he met the Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan
Zelenskyy highlighted how the long war had transformed his country’s industrial capabilities, noting that on Monday Ukrainian drones had “broken through Russia’s defences” and struck an oil refinery in Omsk, Siberia, 1,680 miles (2,700km) from its border.
“We have completely eliminated the very idea of Russia having a strategic rear,” Zelenskyy said in his speech at the Nato forum. Russia, he said, had believed for a long time that its vast size meant it had safe zones for military-industrial production beyond the reach of its near neighbours.
He said new Ukrainian missiles and drones – “the technology of fighting at a distance” – represented “a revolutionary change” in warfare, although he added “we take no pride in this”, because it had been forced on the country in order “to defend our country, our people, our children”.
Ukraine had reached the point where it had raised the interception rate of Shahed drones to “more than 90%”, Zelenskyy said, and was improving its ability to knock out incoming cruise missiles – but he acknowledged that Russia’s most potent weapon remained a problem.
On Monday, at least 15 people were killed in Kyiv after 23 Russian ballistic missiles pounded the capital. None of the missiles were intercepted because of a shortage of US Patriot interceptors, stocks of which have dwindled dramatically after the US attacked Iran in the spring, leading to a war in the Middle East.
“The one thing we still need to do here in Europe is build a strong defence against Russian ballistic missiles,” Zelenskyy said, adding: “I believe Europe urgently needs its own capability to produce anti-ballistic systems and the missiles they require,” because there were not enough US Patriots.
The Center for Strategic and International Studies thinktank estimates that between 1,060 and 1,430 Patriot interceptor missiles were used during the Iran war. Each takes two years to make and the US defence contractor Lockheed Martin makes about 600 a year of the most sophisticated PAC-3 version.
Russia has been increasing its production of missiles and drones. A senior Nato official said at the summit that “Russia launched about 8,300 munitions [at Ukraine] in May alone; 8,150 drones and 211 missiles”, while Ukraine had responded by launching 10,000 long-range drones on Russia in the same month.
Ukraine had knocked out about 20% of Russia’s oil-refining capacity with its deep strike campaign, the official said, while the use of medium-range drones to strike Russian logistics meant its hold on Crimea had weakened. “We’ve all seen the reports about state of emergency being declared in Crimea,” the official said.
Zelenskyy was speaking at a Nato industry event, at which alliance members were announcing more than $50bn in arms deals, supported by increased defence spending agreed under pressure from Trump. A year ago Nato members agreed to lift defence spending to 3.5% of GDP by 2035.