NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg during a press conference at NATO headquarters in Brussels. File photoBRUSSELS, Oct 12 NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, before the meetings of the heads of the defense ministries of the alliance countries in Brussels, spoke about the supply of which air defense systems the bloc is going to concentrate on. Earlier, Stoltenberg said that the alliance, against the backdrop of recent events, intends to focus on the supply of air defense to Ukraine to protect civilian objects.» The Allies have already supplied air defense systems (Ukraine — ed.), But more is needed, various types of long-range and short-range air defense systems are needed, anti-missile defense systems to combat ballistic missiles, drones, various systems for the implementation of various tasks,» he explained. According to the Secretary General, «Ukraine is a large country, with a large number of cities, we need to scale up (supplies — ed.) so that Ukraine can protect more cities and territories from terrible Russian attacks on civilian population.» Moscow had previously sent a note to NATO countries over arms supplies to Ukraine. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov noted that any cargo that contains weapons for Ukraine will become a legitimate target for Russia. The Foreign Ministry of the Russian Federation stated that the NATO countries are «playing with fire» by supplying weapons to Ukraine. Press Secretary of the President of the Russian Federation Dmitry Peskov noted that pumping Ukraine with weapons from the West does not contribute to the success of Russian-Ukrainian negotiations and will have a negative effect. >NATO Secretary General welcomed the announcement of the supply of air defense systems to Ukraine
