20 April 2023

Ukraine conflict: Patriots arrive in country

by Nicholas Fiorenza

Patriot air-defence systems have arrived in Ukraine (photo of Luftwaffe Patriot published when the air-defence system was deployed close to Zamość on the Polish-Ukrainian border in January). (Bundeswehr/Lars Koch)

Patriot air-defence systems have arrived in Ukraine, the country's Defence Minister, Oleksii Reznikov, tweeted on 19 April, expecting them to make the Ukrainian sky more secure. He thanked US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin and German Defence Minister Boris Pistorius, as well as the American, German, and Dutch people.

The list of German military support to Ukraine on the German government's website has been updated to include the Patriot system with missiles. Germany and the US are each supplying a Patriot battery to Ukraine under a joint project that also includes the Netherlands, which is providing two Patriot launchers with missiles.

The US is also providing eight National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile Systems (NASAMS) to Ukraine, and Germany will provide four IRIS-T Surface Launched Medium Range (SLM) ground-based air-defence systems.

Germany has also supplied Ukraine with Gepard self-propelled anti-aircraft guns and the Netherlands is providing 100 MR-2 mobile anti-aircraft systems.

On 9 December 2022, Germany's Handelsblatt newspaper reported that Rheinmetall would supply Ukraine with Skynex short- and very-short-range air-defence systems after the company announced it would supply an international customer with two Skynex systems at the beginning of 2024. Each system comprises four Revolver Gun Mk 3s, a CN-1 control node, and an X-TAR3D target acquisition and tracking radar. Rheinmetall has declined to confirm that Ukraine was the customer, citing contractual reasons.

Patriot air-defence systems have arrived in Ukraine, the country's Defence Minister, Oleksii Rezniko...

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