“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,” he added.
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.”
But some Ukraine supporters brushed off that argument.
Answering a tweet asking why the West did not shoot down Russian drones and missiles, former French ambassador to Washington, Gérard Araud, wrote: “Good question indeed….”
As Kyiv’s ministers plead with Western allies for more help, especially with air defenses, pro-Kyiv allies said the Iran attack episode proved the problem was a lack of will, not one of capabilities. “The common resolute allied response shows how effective our joint efforts can be when there is enough will,” Tomáš Kopečný, the Czech envoy for Ukraine’s reconstruction told POLITICO.
In Ukraine, where senior commanders now warn of deteriorating conditions on the front, the coordinated Western response to Iran’s attack prompted disbelief, rage and bitter mockery.
“So it was possible to hit the aggressor in the teeth together and at once, and prevent the bloodiest war in the center of Europe after the Second World War from the very beginning?” Ukrainian opposition lawmaker Viktoria Siumar wrote in a Facebook post.
This article has been updated to add comments from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy
