Zelensky criticizes his partners’ “double standards” for shooting down Iranian missiles, but not Russian drones

The president of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky, reproached his Western allies this Thursday for the “double standards” they have shown in relation to the disparate support they have offered to his country and to Israel, which they have protected from Iranian missiles.

“This is a war of double standards and paradoxes,” Zelensky said in a meeting with local leaders of Transcarpathia, a Ukrainian region bordering Hungary, as reported by the Ukrinform news agency.

In that sense, he has criticized that those neighboring countries that are part of NATO have been reluctant to shoot down Russian drones, while other allies such as the United States hit the Iranian missiles that fly over Israel.

Zelensky has defended that these neighboring countries should at least be allowed to shoot down Russian projectiles and drones that fly in their direction since “they can also fall on them and their population.”

In that sense, he regretted that despite the predisposition of some allies, the majority “are afraid of making the decision and being left alone” and he gives Poland as an example, whose authorities have been asked to shoot down drones that fly in the direction of their territory, especially if they target the Ukrainian city of Stri, in Lviv, where there is an important gas deposit.

“Our lives depend on this gas supply, especially in winter,” said Zelensky, who has justified this demand for help to Poland in the face of the lack, I have acknowledged, of air defense systems to protect these facilities.

“The Poles said they are willing to do it if they are not alone in this decision, if NATO supports them,” said Zelensky, who assured that the Alliance agreed to reinforce Poland’s air fleet, as it does with the Baltics. To solve this lack of resources that Warsaw is clinging to.

“We wanted the MiGs from Poland, but they couldn’t give them to us because they didn’t have enough. That’s why we agreed with NATO that they would be assigned a police mission, like our Baltic friends (…) Did Poland give us planes? No, he said.

A few days ago, the Polish Government confirmed that they will transfer the rest of these combat aircraft to Ukraine when they “occupy the places” that have been left free after the sending of more fighters of this type during the war. Warsaw expects to receive at least a dozen F-16s and F-35s to modernize its fleet before being able to deliver the old Soviet-made MiG-29s.