Ukraine: Italy to give another Samp-T to Kyiv says Meloni

(ANSA) - ROME, JUL 10 - Italy is to give Ukraine another Samp-T air defence system to shoot down Russian missiles, Premier Giorgia Meloni said on the sidelines of the NATO summit in Washington on Tuesday night.
    Meloni made the announcement shortly after United States President Joe Biden said the US is supplying Kyiv with Patriot missiles along with Germany and Romania.
    "We really focused on an issue that is extremely important, which is air defence because it means defending civilians above all and the critical infrastructure that Russia is continuing to attack, as we saw yesterday with a paediatric hospital struck in Kyiv and the cancer-affected children in the streets," said Meloni after an attack she had described as "horrible".
    Meloni added that Italy will get up to defence spending of 2% of GDP as requested by the United States and NATO according to its own timeframe and financial possibilities, given budget constraints.
    She said that Italy "will keep faith with its commitments" to spend 2% of GDP on defence "obviously with the times and possibilities that we have" and also considering "the country's overall commitment to NATO", where we are "among the largest contributors of personnel in almost all missions and peacekeeping operations because our know-how is in great demand". (ANSA).