London, Thanasis Gavos

Greece and Spain are under “intense” pressure from their EU and NATO allies to provide more air defense systems to Ukraine, writes the Financial Times.

Citing people briefed on the discussions, the British newspaper writes that at the Brussels summit last week, Prime Ministers Kyriakos Mitsotakis and Pedro Sanchez they received personal prompts from their counterparts give up any of the seven air defense systems requested by Ukraine; such as American Patriot and Russian S-300.

The two leaders were reportedly told that their countries’ defense needs were not as great as Ukraine’s and that they face no immediate threat.

“We all know who has them, we all know where they are and we all know who really needs them.” said one of the newspaper’s sources.

Ukraine has three air defense missile systems, one sponsored by the US and two by Germany, which announced the delivery of another Patriot system.

Kiev, the FT writes, is said to be particularly interested in the aging S-300 systems maintained by Greeceas the Ukrainian forces already have them in their arsenal and are experienced in handling them.

The pressure on both countries will intensify at the meeting that the foreign and defense ministers of the 27 EU member countries will have today in Luxembourg, the newspaper adds.

The Defense Ministries in Madrid and Athens declined to comment on the information, the FT adds.