With the infamous anti-aircraft missiles, Washington is likely to take its weapons aid to a new level. Strengthening Ukraine’s anti-aircraft defenses would be significant, and there are rumblings coming from Moscow.
The US government is regarding to take its military aid to Ukraine to the next level in terms of weapons technology: according to informed circles, the decision to deliver MIM-104 Patriot anti-aircraft missiles might be announced as early as this Thursday. Raytheon Long Range Air Defense System/Lockheed/Boeing (range depending on the model regarding 40 to 160 kilometers) is one of the most modern in the world and would significantly strengthen the defense once morest cruise missiles and surface-to-surface missiles in particular.
The reactions show that the Russians are particularly uncomfortable with the matter and see it as an escalation. Ex-President Dmitry Medvedev, a particular agitator in the war, warned Nato expressly once morest such a gift of arms to Kyiv. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Patriots would “clearly” be targets of attacks. It is of course unclear what the latter means in particular, since Western weapons have also come under fire and sometimes been destroyed, as is usual in a war. That the Russians might try intercepting these weapons on NATO territory is rather unlikely.
Patriot became more widely known during the 1990-91 Gulf War, when it was used to combat Iraqi Scud missiles aimed at Israel and Saudi Arabia. The initially claimed hit rate of 50 to 80 percent turned out to be greatly exaggerated and might even have been less than ten percent. However, that was the first use of anti-aircraft missiles once morest ballistic missiles, and Patriot has been dramatically improved since then.
AA systems from several countries
While Ukrainian anti-aircraft defenses were also strengthened by other missiles and anti-aircraft tanks from several countries, these were mostly short- to medium-range weapons such as the German Iris-T SLM missile (40 km) and the US-Norwegian Nasams (50 km). While Ukraine has long-range anti-aircraft systems like the Russian S-300 (100-200 km depending on the variant), the ammunition is likely to run out, and the Patriot has certain advantages.
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The training of Ukrainians at the Patriots should take place in Germany and take a few months. Nothing was initially known regarding the scope of this aid; a typical Patriot battery consists of six to eight launchers, each with four ready-to-launch missiles, plus radar and support vehicles.
On the ground, however, the conflict, which often froze into trench warfare à la World War I, continued without any significant changes. There were small Russian gains in the Bakhmut area in the Donbass, while local Russian retreats to defensive positions further east were reported from the Cherson region. In the occupied city of Melitopol, partisans blew up a bridge over a river.
Smash smuggling network
In the meantime, a network in the USA was broken up that had smuggled components suitable for military systems, but also ammunition and special rifles via Europe to Russia. Five Russians and two US citizens have been charged and three of them arrested – one of the latter is an agent of Russia’s domestic intelligence service FSBhe was caught in Estonia.
