The head of the European Parliament, Roberta Metsola, went to Ukraine on her own to meet with President Volodymyr Zelensky on Saturday. There, she pushed for countries in the European Union to send fighter jets to Ukraine.
After weeks of Western tanks pouring into Ukraine, Roberta Metsola, a Maltese politician and the first woman to lead the European Parliament, called for the war with Russia to get worse. She said that Ukraine should get planes from countries that are part of the European Union.
Metsola is said to have said at a meeting in Lviv, which is in western Ukraine, “Member States should seriously think about sending planes to Ukraine.” The German newspaper Die Welt wrote about this. She also said that she would keep trying to get more supplies sent to the front lines.
But the main reason for her trip was to push for Ukraine to join the European Union. Metsola said she hoped that membership talks could start as soon as this year. President Zelensky said that his government would do its best to meet the requirements for joining the union as soon as possible so that talks could start.
The president of the European Parliament was also going to be at the “United for Justice” conference, which would focus on bringing Russian officials to court when the conflict is over.
Metsola said at the conference that there can’t be peace without responsibility and justice, and that trying to make people happy never works. For example, Turkey has illegally occupied a large part of the EU member state Cyprus for decades, but it is still a candidate for EU membership and has gotten EU money and joined the EU’s customs union.
Along with Metsola, Latvia’s Prime Minister Krijnis Kari sent fighter jets to Ukraine, which added to the tensions with that country.
I think it is clear that the West should send fighter planes. Karins said that if the Ukrainian government wanted combat planes, getting them would be “just a matter of time.”
Then, he asked his neighbors in Europe, especially Germany, to make more ammunition to send to the front.
The issue of ammunition has become very important. Kari thinks that German business is the best way to make Europe’s defenses stronger. “Russia now has a military economy and is always making things. So, no, we are not in a state of getting ready for war.
We all want to live in peace. Still, peace can only come about if Ukraine does well. She’ll need our weapons to do this.”
France and Germany have both said they will send main battle tanks to the area of conflict, but neither country has said it will send planes.
On the other hand, Britain has made it clear that EU planes need to be sent out.
The British government says it is not possible to give Ukraine its high-tech Typhoon fighter jets because it would take too long to train Ukrainian pilots and engineers to fly and fix the planes. However, the Ministry of Defense has offered to help any country that sends Ukraine fighter jets from the Soviet era or Russia.