The Ukrainian Air Power has raised questions concerning the reliability of the MIM-104 Patriot lengthy vary air defence system equipped to the nation, with the service’s official spokesman Igor Ignat particularly highlighting the system’s shortcomings intercepting assaults by Russia’s main tactical ballistic missile system the Iskander-M. Ignat acknowledged on Could 26: “The Iskander missiles carry out evasive manoeuvres within the ultimate part, thwarting the Patriot’s trajectory calculations… As well as, the Iskander can drop decoys able to fooling Patriot missiles.” His assertion follows the discharge of footage over greater than a yr confirming the destruction of Patriot methods in strikes by Iskander-M methods on a number of separate events.
The Iskander system was first confirmed to have efficiently destroyed a Patriot system on February 23, 2024, with a subsequent strike destroying one other system close to the Sergeevka locality on March 10 that yr, leaving floor forces within the area uncovered. Subsequently within the second week of July, 2024, new footage confirmed the destruction of two batteries within the Odessa area, whereas on August 11 three extra missile batteries and an AN/MPQ-65 radar had been reported to have been destroyed in Iskander-M strikes. One of many Iskander-M’s newer successes noticed the destruction of the Patriot’s AN/MPQ-65 multifunctional radar station, fight management cabin, and missile launch autos within the Dnepropetrovsk area.
The primary Patriot system was reported to have reached Ukraine on April 18, 2023, with the US, Germany and the Netherlands having been the primary three to donate methods to the nation, after which different international locations from throughout NATO adopted go well with. America had been the primary to pledge to supply the system on December 22 the earlier yr. Three days later, Russian President Vladimir Putin acknowledged that the destruction of any Patriot methods delivered to Ukraine was an absolute certainty. “After all, we’ll take them out, 100 %!,” he remarked. Questions had been on the time extensively raised by consultants concerning Ukraine’s capability to soak up the methods, which required nicely over a yr of personnel coaching. This fuelled hypothesis that the methods had been closely reliant on Western contractors to perform as soon as they grew to become operational. The primary report of a Patriot system being efficiently focused emerged on Could 16, 2023, after an air launched variant of the Iskander-M system’s 9K720 missile was launched in opposition to the system in Kiev. Western and Ukrainian sources denied Russian claims that the missile strike was profitable. The appreciable successes the Iskander-M has had neutralising Patriot methods since then, nonetheless, has lent some help to Russian claims.
Questions concerning the Patriot system’s effectiveness in opposition to assaults by fashionable ballistic methods had been raised lengthy earlier than its supply to Ukraine. When the Patriot first noticed fight in the course of the Gulf Warfare in 1991 in opposition to Iraqi Scud B missiles, which had been by then already far old-fashioned and had been in service for nearly 30 years, investigations into the system’s efficiency discovered that it had carried out poorly regardless of opposite claims by Western authorities sources and media. The American Home Authorities Operations Subcommittee on Laws and Nationwide Safety reported to this impact concerning authorities protection: “The Patriot missile system was not the spectacular success within the Persian Gulf Warfare that the American public was led to imagine. There may be little proof to show that the Patriot hit quite a lot of Scud missiles launched by Iraq in the course of the Gulf Warfare, and there are some doubts about even these engagements. The general public and the Congress had been misled by definitive statements of success issued by administration and Raytheon representatives throughout and after the conflict.”
In 1992 a navy report titled ‘Patriot Missile System Effectiveness Throughout Desert Storm’ discovered that of the 158 missiles fired in the course of the Gulf Warfare, 45 % had been launched in opposition to false targets. An early Nineteen Nineties research by Theodore Postol, professor of Science, Expertise and Worldwide Safety on the Massachusetts Institute of Expertise and outstanding knowledgeable on missile applied sciences, highlighted: “The Patriot’s intercept fee in the course of the Gulf Warfare was very low. The proof from these preliminary research signifies that Patriot’s intercept fee could possibly be a lot decrease than 10 %, presumably even zero.” Even “essentially the most primitive of adversaries” might simply evade interception, his research concluded.
Following the revelations of the Patriot system’s shortcomings within the Gulf Warfare, there have been appreciable hopes within the Western world that its modernisation would enable it to supply a way more viable defence in opposition to ballistic missile assaults. Such hopes had been disillusioned by its efficiency in the course of the 2003 invasion of Iraq, and moreso 14 years later when additional modernised variants failed to intercept a strike by makeshift ballistic missiles launched by Yemeni paramilitaries in opposition to Saudi Arabia in 2017. The Yemeni missiles had been proven by satellite tv for pc imagery and by pictures and movies of the assault to not have been neutralised, regardless of claims by the Saudi and U.S. authorities sources on the contrary. Evaluation performed by a analysis crew of missile consultants confirmed a warhead flying unimpeded over Saudi Arabia regardless of its massive arsenal of modernised Patriot batteries defending the affected space. Jeffrey Lewis, the analyst who led the analysis crew, acknowledged concerning the failure of the Patriot system to carry out even essentially the most primary interception and the depiction of failure as a victory: “Governments lie concerning the effectiveness of those methods. Or they’re misinformed. And that ought to fear the hell out of us.” The questions extra not too long ago raised by Ukrainian officers concerning the Patriot system’s reliability in opposition to Russian ballistic missile assaults thus slot in with an extended historical past of underwhelming performances in such a job. This has important implications for militaries throughout the Western world and in Northeast Asia that depend on the system for his or her defence.
