Rehka stated that he and Hecker talked about the assignments from the NATO summit in Vilnius, but also the fulfillment of the defense strategy and regional plans. “It appears that in any possible armed conflict, air power and air defense will play a key role,” stated The discussion concerned what the trends are and how to project experience from Ukraine or Israel into the air defense of the future.
Hecker added that the situation in Ukraine shows the key role of air supremacy. “It is necessary to prevent the situation we see now, when thousands of artillery shells are flying and trench warfare almost resembles World War II. There are many wounded and dead, and entire cities are destroyed.” he explained.
At the start of the Russian invasion more than two years ago, Ukraine was able to stop the Russian advance thanks to good integrated air defenses, according to Hecker. “Ukrainians shot down over 100 Russian planes, preventing Russia from gaining air supremacy,” stated Russia has gradually moved to a tactic of using cruise missiles and ballistic missiles as a complement to unmanned assets, he added.
Řehka and Hecker agreed that in the future, it is necessary to find means to defend against inexpensive disposable drones. “Air defense needs to be built in different segments from low-cost to more sophisticated ones,” said Řehka.
Ukraine’s air defense is getting into a critical situation due to dwindling supplies, it is necessary to respond with additional help, Hecker said. In this context, he mentioned the recently approved package of American aid, which releases an additional 61 billion dollars (over 1.4 trillion CZK) for military and economic support of Ukraine and countries in the region.
Řehka added that Ukraine does not rely only on aid, but was able to develop its own air defense systems and segments. “There are areas where we learn from them, for example in the use of mobile fire units or acoustic sensors,” he said.
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NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said in an interview with Reuters that there is a need to reconsider the way of coordinating international military aid to Ukraine.
Pro-Russian Ukrainian politician and businessman Arťom Marčevskij, who was placed on the national sanctions list by the Czech government last month, received temporary protection in Slovakia, wrote today Deník N. At the same time, Prague was counting on the fact that in the foreseeable future, Marchevský would be stripped of the temporary protection he had obtained in the Czech Republic after Russia’s aggression against Ukraine. This would mean that he would lose his residence permit in the entire territory of the EU. But now it will depend on the attitude of the Slovak authorities.
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