Spain will buy more weapons from the US, but it will not do so within the framework of the open conflict with the Trump Administration for being the only NATO country to refuse to increase defense spending to 5% of GDP by 2030. The US weapons that Madrid will acquire, and after Trump himself broke with Joe Biden’s policy of supplying weapons from Washington’s coffers.
This is how he has advanced it this Thursday in an information in which it reveals that this decision was made after Sánchez and the head of Defense, Minister Margarita Robles, spoke with their Ukrainian counterparts. Both President Volodímir Zelensky and the head of Defense in kyiv, Denis Shmihal, conveyed to Spain the need to have this weapon at a time when Moscow is once again focusing its massive bombings on the already weak and damaged energy infrastructure. At the gates of winter.
In this way, Spain joins the list of countries that participate in the PURL program (acronym in English for ‘Ukraine Priority Requirements List’). This initiative is nothing more than the joint international solution found, especially within community nations and G7 countries, in response to the reaction of a Trump who made it clear that the tap of free weapons was being cut off.
What’s on the PURL’s weapons shopping list?: from Patriot missiles to the dreaded Himars
In this sense, it is worth noting that several weapons purchases have already been made. Four packages worth $2 billion were prepared in the summer. A first bill that was borne by Germany, the Netherlands, Canada, Denmark, Norway and Sweden. What does Ukraine need that only the US can sell and that cannot find a substitute in Spanish arms production? Above all, ways to defend against long-range attacks and ways to attack at long range.
This has translated into the necessary Patriot missiles that fuel the anti-aircraft batteries of the same name. These ‘made in the USA’ defenses are key to avoiding Russian bombings. But there is more, in those four initial batches the Himars systems capable of launching long-range missiles also stood out. It is not an anti-aircraft defense weapon, it is a mobile rocket launcher that allows it to hit Russian targets at long range – arms factories, refineries, chemical plants, energy infrastructure… the same thing that Russia does – if they use an ATACMS missile, or otherwise carry six M30/M31 rockets with a range of up to 300 kilometers.
It should be noted that other countries had made the same decision, in support of kyiv, joining the first in the programs. This has been the case of: Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Belgium, Luxembourg, Finland and Iceland.
