The Diplomat
The Minister of Defense, Margarita Robles, assured yesterday that Spain has no intention of sending “any type” of combat aircraft to Ukraine, both in terms of the F-16 requested by Kyiv and which Spain “does not have” as well as the F-18 or Eurofighter which our country does have.
The position with regard to Ukraine “has always been very clear, we are not going to send fighter planes”, the minister declared to the press at the end of the ceremony of the X edition of the Soldier Idoia Rodriguez Woman in the Armed Forces Award, which took place at the Ministry’s headquarters.
On 23 February last, the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, declared in Kyiv that the President of Ukraine, Volodimir Zelenskyy, had asked him for “air assistance”, but he specified that this decision should be dealt with within NATO as a whole and that, in any case, the Government would study it. The following day, Sanchez declared to SER, RNE and Antena 3 that Zelenskyy’s request for fighter jets is “legitimate”, but reiterated that this decision should be taken jointly with the rest of the partners and allies and after an analysis of the available capabilities by the Ministry of Defense. Likewise, Sanchez ruled out that sending Leopard battle tanks to Ukraine necessarily implies sending aircraft: “It doesn’t have to”.
In any case, Robles yesterday ruled out the possibility of sending aircraft to Ukraine. “The president says that we are open to all possibilities, but the planes specifically that Ukraine wants, Spain does not have them,” she assured. The minister herself already warned last February 10 that Spain will not be able to send to Ukraine the F-16 aircraft requested by Volodimir Zelenski because it simply “does not have them.”
Regarding the decision of Poland or Slovakia to announce this week the sending of fighters to Ukraine, Robles assured that the Spanish government is “very respectful” with the decisions of the allies, but insisted that Spain does not intend to send fighter-bombers and explained that the F-18 or the Eurofighter that the Spanish Army does have require a very specific training and preparation, very different from those of the MiG-29, the fighters of Soviet origin that Poland or Slovakia are going to send.
Margarita Robles informed last Tuesday during the ministerial meeting of the Contact Group for the Defense of Ukraine, and reiterated yesterday to the media, that Spain will send in the next dates (between the end of March and the beginning of April), and after their tuning, six Leopard 2A 4 battle tanks, to which will be added a second batch of another four units that will be delivered in the next months. She also announced the shipment of a new batch of TOA M-113 Infantry Vehicles for troop transport, which will be added to the twenty delivered a month ago.
