“Unfortunately, Russia still has the advantage in artillery and missiles,” he said. He requested additional artillery, as well as modern tanks – equipment that Ukraine has repeatedly requested, along with fighter jets and long-range missiles.
The decision to send in the Patriot system would be a strong indication of the United States’ deeper military commitment to Ukraine. The Pentagon’s active Patriot units are regularly deployed to missions around the world, and experts say the United States doesn’t have the kind of deep stockpile of Patriot missiles ready for delivery that it did. with ammunition such as shells and rockets.
Capable of being configured in a number of ways, a Patriot battery typically includes one or more launchers, radars, and vehicles for command and control of air defense operations.
According to experts at the Missile Defense Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington think tank, the system uses three different missile models.
One, called the PAC-3 Cost Reduction Initiative, or CRI, can hit enemy fighter jets, helicopters and cruise missiles at a range of about 40 miles and ballistic missile targets at ranges. 22 miles away. The second, known as the PAC-3 Missile Segment Enhancement, or MSE, can hit the same types of targets at ranges of 75 miles and 44 miles, analysts from the Missile Defense Project say. The third type, called the Enhanced Guided Missile-Tactical, or GEM-T, can destroy enemy aircraft at a distance of 99 miles.
It is not clear which missile model the US intends to send to Ukraine.
The Pentagon has previously supplied Ukraine two shorter range air defense weapons known as the National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile System, or NASAMS, arrives in November. The Pentagon is spending $1.2 billion to build six more NASAMs and deliver them to Kiev in the coming years. But NASAMS can only hit targets about a third as much as the Patriot system.
The US Army has deployed Patriot batteries in numerous conflicts since the early 1990s. Perhaps in the most recent combat use of this weapon, US Army soldiers at Base Al Dhafra Air Force in the United Arab Emirates fired “multiple” Patriot interceptors at missiles headed for the base in January, according to US Central Command.
