Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy announced on June 9 that he is working with the leaders of other European nations to develop anti-ballistic missile capabilities for the continent.
Zelenskyy said in a post on X that he was collaborating with the leaders of Britain, Germany, and France, informally known as the E3, on the project.
“E3 countries will help us with anti-ballistic capabilities. By the way, I hope that we will manage to develop a European anti-ballistic system together with the UK. We are working on it. We need it, and the UK needs it,” he said in the post.
The Ukrainian leader went on to make two other points in the same post, with the second being that “everybody agreed” at the E3 meeting in London over the weekend that “we need to strengthen sanctions on Russia.”
The meeting at 10 Downing Street was hosted by British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and included French President Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, and Zelenskyy.
His third point was that the Ukrainian army needed to be moved to a “contract-based system.”
“It’s dangerous to be a soldier and we need to give them respectable salaries because they are giving their lives. We need additional funding for this. Currently, it’s nowhere near what Russia pays its mercenaries. I do hope that our friends will help,” he said.
Zelenskyy’s remarks came as he arrived in Estonia on June 9 to attend a summit of Nordic and Baltic leaders.
The visit comes amid concerns in those countries over Ukrainian drones, which have strayed into several of the nations’ airspace in recent months.
Ukrainian officials have apologized for the incidents, saying the drones had been aimed at Russian military targets but were sent off course by electronic interference from Moscow.
The summit is being hosted in the Estonian capital of Tallinn, as the country holds the rotating presidency of the Nordic-Baltic 8, a regional grouping of the five Nordic countries of Iceland, Norway, Denmark, Sweden, and Finland, as well as the three Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania.
On the sidelines of the summit, Zelenskyy and Estonian President Alar Karis agreed to work on cheaper ways to destroy drones that fly over Estonia, such as the one that a NATO fighter jet shot down over the south of the country in May.
“We have shown that we can shoot the drones down with the planes,” Karis said during a joint news conference in Tallinn.
However, he added that using fighter jets to shoot down the drones is very expensive, so he said he hopes to partner with Ukraine for its technology and expertise to do so more cheaply, according to The Associated Press.
Zelenskyy said Ukraine was ready to do so, using the experience that Kyiv’s military had gained helping other countries shoot down drones.
“We did this in the Middle East, and it worked,” he said. Ukraine could offer the low-cost interceptor drones it has used in its own war against Russia, to build an inexpensive shield against such attacks, and Kyiv could send expert teams to its European partners “at any moment,” he said.
Karis said he expects drones to cross into Baltic airspace as the war drags on and urged the Estonian public to remain calm.
He further stated that he supports Ukraine’s bids to join the EU and NATO while also calling for stronger sanctions against Moscow.
At the summit, Ukraine additionally signed a drone deal with Latvia, Zelenskyy announced in a June 9 post on X.
“These are concrete things to strengthen our joint defense and co-production, and, importantly, this also means Ukraine’s expertise and experience helping to strengthen our partners,” he said, while providing no details about the deal.
Latvian Prime Minister Andris Kulbergs said the agreement would give Latvia technological know-how and co-production opportunities.
“We need to protect our skies, and nobody knows how to do that better than Ukraine,” he told a joint press conference alongside Zelenskyy and other leaders attending the summit.
The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.
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