The United States is about to send Patriot missiles to Ukraine

WASHINGTON – The United States is in the process of approving shipment of its most advanced land-based air defense system to Ukraine, in response to the country’s urgent request to help defend against a wave of Russian attacks with missiles and drones, two US officials said on Tuesday.

The Secretary of DefenseLloyd Austincould approve a directive this week to relocate a battery to Ukraine patriot already overseas, officials said, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss domestic deliberations.

Final approval would then rest with the President Joe Biden.

White House, Pentagon and State Department officials declined to comment on the details of the transfer of a Patriot battery, which, if approved, would be one of the more sophisticated weapons which the United States supplied to Ukraine.

The Patriot system can shoot down Russian ballistic missiles, unlike other Western-supplied systems, and can hit targets much further.

“We have made it clear that the United States will continue to prioritize the delivery of air defense in Ukraine to help our Ukrainian partners defend against the brutal Russian aggression we have witnessed for nearly a year,” State Department spokesman Ned Price told reporters on Tuesday.

Many questions remain about the possible move, which CNN has already reported, including how long it would take to train Ukrainian soldiers in the system, presumably in Germany, and where is it the Patriots would be deployed within Ukraine.

The US had previously resisted supplying the Ukrainians with Patriot batteries, of which they have relatively few and require a sophisticated training.

But Ukrainian authorities have stepped up their calls for air defenses from the United States and other Western allies as Russia has carried out relentless attacks against power plants, heating systems and other energy infrastructure.

The attacks, with Iranian-made missiles and drones, have left Ukrainians vulnerable and in the dark as the coldest time of the year sets in.

Over the weekend, Russian drone strikes on the southern Ukrainian port city of Odessa plunged more than 1.5 million people in the region into darkness.

The President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky, stated that the Russian attacks, which were part of a nationwide attack on Ukraine’s energy grid, had left the region in a predicament”very difficult”and warned that it will take days, not hours, to restore energy to the civilian population.

In a speech to the Group of 7 on Monday, Zelensky thanked countries for their continued support, but cited arms financing at the top of his appeals.

“Unfortunately, Russia still has an advantage in artillery and missiles,” he said.

It has required additional artillery, as well as modern tanks, equipment that Ukraine has repeatedly requested, along with fighters and long-range missiles.

The decision to send the Patriot system would be a clear signal of the growing US military commitment to Ukraine.

The Pentagon’s active-duty Patriot units are often deployed on missions around the world, and experts say the United States doesn’t have the kind of Patriot missile arsenals available for transfer that it did with. ammunition such as artillery shells and rockets.

Capable of being configured in a variety of ways, a Patriot battery typically consists of one or more launchersradars and vehicles for the command and control of air defense operations.

The system uses three different missile modelsaccording to experts at the Missile Defense Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington think tank.

One of these, called the PAC-3 Cost Reduction Initiative, or CRI, can hit enemy warplanes, helicopters and cruise missiles at a range of about 65 kilometers, and ballistic missile targets at a range of 35 kilometers.

The second, called the PAC-3 Missile Segment Enhancement, or MSE, can strike the same types of targets at ranges of 120 kilometers and 471 kilometers, respectively, according to Missile Defense Project analysts.

The third, called Guidance Enhanced Missile-Tactical, or GEM-T, can destroy enemy aircraft from about 100 miles away.

It is unclear which model or models of missiles the US intends to send to Ukraine.

Earlier, the Pentagon supplied Ukraine with two short-range air defense weapons called the National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile System, or NASAMS, They arrived in November.

The Pentagon is spending $1.2 billion on six more NASAMSs to be built and delivered to Ukraine over the next few years.

But NASAMS can only hit targets at a third away compared to the Patriot system.

The U.S. military has deployed Patriot batteries in numerous conflicts since the early 1990s.

In what may be the last use of these weapons in combat, US Army soldiers at Al Dhafra Air Base in the United Arab Emirates fired “multiple” Patriot interceptors at missiles aimed at the base in January, according to the command central United States.

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