london –

European countries are struggling to agree on providing Ukraine with much-needed weapons as Kiev’s military struggles to defend itself against an incursion by Russian forces.

Ukrainian cities and critical infrastructure faced renewed drone and missile attacks from Russia on Friday, with an attack in the central Dnipropetrovsk region killing at least eight people, including two children. An attack in the city of Chernihiv on Wednesday killed at least 13 people.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz called on NATO allies to provide Ukraine with more US-made Patriot air defense systems after a two-day special EU council meeting in Brussels this week.

“NATO has made it very clear that among the systems available to NATO countries, there are several countries that may make the decision like we did – to hand over another system in order to better defend against the many attacks that are currently taking place against Ukraine,” Scholz told us. Reporter Thursday. “I would like to take this opportunity to reiterate this call. We heard that there should be seven more, one of which is ours. We hope to find another six within NATO.”

On the eastern front, Ukrainian forces say their firepower lags behind Moscow’s forces and is slowly losing ground in several areas. Amanda Paul, a security analyst at the Brussels-based European Policy Center, said Kiev had repeatedly made urgent appeals to the West for more military aid, but Western hesitation only encouraged Moscow.

“Russia is taking advantage of the West’s failure to provide Ukraine with adequate military assistance, including air defense systems, to target its infrastructure,” she said.

Individual European countries have provided large amounts of military assistance to Ukraine. In March, the EU increased its EU fund to provide arms to Kyiv by $5 billion.

A Czech-led program aims to supply up to 1.5 million artillery shells to Kiev next year, with the first batch of 180,000 to be delivered in the coming months.

However, Russian military production appears to exceed Western military aid and Ukraine’s own weapons manufacturing capabilities.

Meanwhile, some EU countries have stopped providing the long-range weapons Ukraine says it needs to target Russian supply lines. Germany has ruled out supplying Taurus long-range missiles.

Analyst Paul said that while we are now seeing some tougher statements from the German chancellor or French President Emmanuel Macron, there is still a lot of talk but not a lot of action, which is exacerbating the problem.

“Only when things get pretty intense on the battlefield do the Europeans change their narrative or start sending more weapons to Ukraine, or at least make commitments,” Paul said. “Some countries have been worried about Russian influence. We’ve seen this for a long time: ‘We don’t want to escalate with the Kremlin.’ “Such narratives seem to have disappeared, at least verbally.”

Despite the fierce fighting on the battlefield, the Ukrainian army continues to fight back against Russia. The Russian military claimed to have shot down a TU-22 strategic bomber on Friday in Russian airspace about 300 kilometers from the Russian border. Kiev said the plane had been involved in an earlier bomb attack in Dnipropetrovsk.

The Ukrainian Air Force will receive the first of dozens of F-16 fighter jets from Denmark, the Netherlands and the United States in the coming months, which could significantly enhance Ukraine’s capabilities. Three more Dutch F-16s arrived at a Ukrainian training facility in Romania on Wednesday. Several other NATO countries, including Norway, Greece and Belgium, have pledged to provide Ukraine with F-16 fighter jets next year.

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said on March 27 that these fighter jets should appear in the skies over Ukraine in mid-summer.

“So far, everything is going according to plan,” Kuleba told the report in an online briefing.