Cream of the crop in anti-aircraft defense, Biden presents Zelensky with “patriots”

It flew in the air for a while. But now the president of Ukraine Zelensky in the White House The floor is coming in, and it’s time for Joe Biden’s big announcement: America will donate patriots to Ukraine.

The use of this sophisticated anti-aircraft system should, among other things, respond to Russian missile attacks on energy and water supplies. Speculation of a new Russian attack in January or February next year makes the issue even more urgent.

Very reliable

The system was designed in the 1980s and is best suited to protect airspace up to 20 km altitude and 60 km range. Missiles are very accurate. Therefore, the anti-aircraft system is considered one of the most reliable in the world. In particular, they could help the Ukrainians in Moscow’s increasingly assertive fight against Iranian missiles. That argument would have helped win over Washington. The anti-aircraft systems that the Ukrainian military now has are particularly good at shooting down Russian missiles. But Moscow is gradually running out of supplies and increasingly dependent on Iranian missiles.

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America can send patriots to Ukraine in a relatively short period of time, but Ukrainians must also work with them. About a hundred soldiers are needed to man a Patriot battery. In general, training takes at least six months, but Ukrainian soldiers may receive abbreviated training. For the service of the Himars, a short training was sufficient. The question is whether Ukrainians are already trained for patriotic formations, since Washington is unlikely to send American soldiers.

Either way, the Pentagon wants to train more Ukrainian soldiers. Starting in January, six to eight hundred Ukrainians will be trained each month. This is more than twice the current training rate. These trainings are held in Germany. The British have already trained 10,000 Ukrainian soldiers.

‘Target for the Kremlin’

As soon as rumors about the deliveries of the patriots spread in the American media, the Kremlin responded decisively. He said it was a provocation. Russians see an increase in this. For them, the Patriots are a “legitimate target.” This morning, as it became clear that Zelensky was heading to Washington, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov described the “new arms deliveries” as “a provocation.” President Putin, on the other hand, said, “There is no brake on financing the military.” The dreaded Russian Sarmat II missiles are ready for use, he said.

Although those threats have less impact. The Ukrainian military’s use of Himars missile systems, which can hit Russian targets with high precision up to 80 kilometers, was also seen as a provocation by Moscow. Yet they did not lead to an expansion of the war into NATO territory. The arms transfers tipped the war in favor of Ukraine, but prompted the Russians to launch large-scale missile attacks against civilian infrastructure.