Spain to send Hawk air defense systems to Ukraine

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Spain will be delivering more Hawk air defense systems to Kiev in the wake of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group's meeting earlier in the week, US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said on Thursday.

"We met yesterday in the Ukraine Defense Contact Group... and just today, one of our allies came back one day later and said that they're going to put in additional Hawk systems, which the Ukrainians had asked for, so we thank Spain for its very, very rapid response," Austin said after a NATO defense ministerial in Brussels.

Austin said he was confident that the NATO allies will provide Ukraine with additional air defense capabilities.

Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov said a few weeks back that Ukraine has been awaiting another millions-of-dollars-worth shipment of rounds for US-supplied High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS). 

The last Ukraine Defense Contact Group meeting saw Ukraine garnering various arms and equipment. After a meeting at the US air base in Ramstein, Germany, Reznikov said, "The Ukrainian delegation has wrapped up a very eventful and fruitful visit to the Fifth Ukraine Defense Contact Group … An additional $675 million aid package was announced at the meeting."

Austin expressed optimism regarding his country's NATO allies, saying he was confident they would provide Ukraine with additional air defense capabilities.

The sixth Ukraine Defense Contact Group saw the member states mainly focusing on Ukraine's air defense needs, especially in light of the newest threat roaming in Kiev's skies: the Shahed-136 loitering munition drone.

Ukraine reported strikes and explosions in Kiev and its vicinity, as well as in the Kharkov, Odessa, Dnipro, Lvov, Ivano-Frankivsk, Ternopil, Khmelnytsky, Konotop, Rivne, and Poltava regions.

A Ukrainian fighter jet crashed in the Vinnytsia region of Ukraine on Wednesday, Kiev's State Bureau of Investigation (SBI) confirmed on Thursday following reports on the matter.

The fighter jet in question is a MiG-29K, which was sent out to intercept Shahed-136 loitering munition UAVs, according to the Ukrainian bureau.

The SBI claimed that after the MiG-29K succeeded in destroying five "Shahed-136s", the jet collided with debris from a destroyed drone, which caused massive damage to it to the point where it crashed near a village in northeast Vinnytsia. The pilot managed to eject and is currently receiving treatment in the hospital.

The Russian armed forces have been conducting a vicious campaign over the past few days, which has seen Moscow shelling Ukraine and carrying out drone strikes, causing air raids to blare throughout the country, and leading to a highly tense atmosphere.

Russia carried out Monday strikes against infrastructure critical for the Ukrainian military, which happened to include facilities related to energy and connectivity.

Russian President Vladimir Putin explained the debacle by underlining that his country would not leave without response the crimes Kiev committed against Russian civilian infrastructure, primarily the explosion that took place on the Crimean bridge.

The Russian National Anti-Terrorist Committee reported last week that a truck exploded on the Crimean Bridge early in the morning.

Read next: Russia's State Duma: Crimea Bridge blast "declaration of war"

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in August that the country would return to "Russian-occupied Crimea" whichever way it sees fit, without consulting with other countries.