The trip of the President of Ukraine, Volodimir Zelenski, to the United States has among its main symbolic burdens the commitment to send Patriot missiles, a technology that, although it will not mean great changes in the war field, it is called to be a flag of the American political and military commitment.
Patriot missiles – an acronym for Phased Array Tracking Radar for Intercept on Target – derive from programs initiated in the sixties of the 20th century and their first deployment dates back to the eighties. Currently, 18 countries have this technology, not counting possible agreements with Ukraine, according to the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS).
The United States deployed Patriots in the first Gulf War, although their effectiveness was particularly noteworthy more than a decade later, when US troops launched a new offensive in Iraq to overthrow Saddam Hussein’s regime. In recent years, they have served in the war in Yemen, among other scenarios.
CSIS notes in a recent article by Marcos F. Cancian and Tom Karako that the Administration is not only seeking to help Ukrainian forces defend themselves against Russian attacks, but also to make it clear that it will continue to support the government of Volodimir Zelenski on all fronts.
In fact, Zelenski has in recent months called for an improvement of the anti-aircraft defense systems, a key instrument to face an offensive that Russia is also waging from the air, with coordinated missile launches at different points in Ukraine practically simultaneously.
Cancian and Karako argue that, in reality, both the United States and other NATO countries have little leeway to provide these systems to Ukraine, since investment in this type of technology has not been so necessary to guarantee national sovereignty and facilitate war operations on the ground.
In addition, in the case of the Patriot, it is an expensive system -around 1.1 billion dollars including the missiles- and training usually takes several months, a period that is expected to be shortened in the case of Ukraine.
IT WILL NOT BE A MILITARY INFLEXION POINT The CSIS points out that the deployment of Patriot will in no case be decisive for Russia’s potential military defeat, since the system only protects the area where it is installed. Moscow has also warned that it will attack this equipment if it is deployed on Ukrainian territory.
The Spanish Ministry of Defense explains that the system’s radar can detect targets between 70 and 130 kilometers away, while each launcher can carry a maximum of four missiles with a range of up to 100 kilometers. This type of battery would facilitate the response to missiles and also to large drones.
Source: (EUROPA PRESS)
