Ukraine to get advanced American air defenses

Cross another item off the Ukrainian weapons wish list.

Washington is on the verge of supplying advanced Patriot MIM-104 surface-to-air missile systems to Kyiv, according to multiple U.S. officials quoted by CNN and Reuters. The number and variant of the system have not been disclosed yet, and the supply still needs to be signed off by Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and President Biden, although their consent, in light of the press leaks, is considered to be a formality.

Securing advanced air defense systems has long been a top priority for the Ukrainians, particularly longer-range systems like the Patriot or the Russian S-300.

Previously, the only long-range surface-to-air missiles that had been delivered to Ukraine were a sole Slovakian S-300 battery, a Soviet-vintage platform but still an extremely effective one. However, as stocks of these Soviet-era missiles are now running low, and repeated Russian strikes on Ukrainian power infrastructure have plunged large sections of Ukraine into darkness, improving Ukrainian air defense capability has become a stated top priority by Western government officials such as Austin and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz.

The PAC 2 versions of the Patriot are the most capable long-range surface-to-air missiles in the NATO arsenal, with a 99-mile range against aircraft and cruise missiles. The smaller PAC 3 variants have a far shorter 19-mile range; they are almost entirely designed to intercept ballistic missiles. A combination of both types is typically used to defend American military installations against any possible aerial threat. Rzeszow-Jasionka airport, a major logistics hub on the Polish-Ukraine border through which a large amount of Western military aid flows to Ukraine, has been defended by two batteries of Patriots in this configuration since early March.

The planned supply of Patriots suggests Washington is increasingly nervous about the toll that Russia’s repeated strikes on Ukraine’s critical civilian infrastructure have been taking on the country’s power supply. Rolling blackouts and water shortages are now a constant of daily life for millions of Ukrainians, and recently Kyiv’s mayor, Vitali Klitschko, warned that as freezing winter temperatures approach, it might even be necessary to evacuate the capital.

Moreover, Iran’s reported willingness to send short-range ballistic missiles to replenish Russia’s dwindling domestic stock means there is likely more trouble on the way. This type of missile is virtually impossible to intercept with air defense systems the Ukrainians currently possess, while the PAC 3 versions of the Patriot are specifically designed to shoot it down. In Saudi military service, Patriots have intercepted over 100 tactical ballistic missiles fired by the Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen, although the system has also had some high-profile failures, possibly due to operator error.

“Supplying Patriots is another sign that the Biden administration is starting to increase the sophistication of the systems they’re sending to Ukraine in retaliation for the Russian bombardment campaign,” said Phillips O’Brien, a professor of strategic studies at the University of St. Andrews. The announcement also shows a high level of U.S. confidence in Ukraine’s military performance, a marked about-face from where Washington was only a year ago. Before Russia’s Feb. 24 invasion of Ukraine, a major obstacle to U.S. security assistance was the fear that should Kyiv fall, any sensitive military hardware would be seized by Moscow, which could share it with other American adversaries, namely China. Yet the continuance and longevity of Ukraine as a sovereign nation is now more underwritten by Western hard power and financial support than ever before.

While it is unclear which variant of the Patriot system will be given to Kyiv, a major question arises if it’s the PAC 2: Will it have any form of “geo-blocking” that could prevent the Ukrainians from targeting aircraft flying in Russian airspace?

For many months, Russian cruise missiles have been launched by Russian strategic bombers flying well outside Ukrainian-controlled airspace. Kyiv’s current air defense network makes venturing inside Ukrainian territory a potential one-way flight. Ukraine’s powerful new air defense tool could threaten the Kremlin’s warplanes while they remain soaring over Russia soil.

Still another constant of this war is that what yesterday Washington deemed too risky, today it considers necessary.

According to a recent report in the Wall Street Journal, U.S.-supplied High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS) had software modifications that would prevent them from firing at coordinates inside Russia’s internationally recognized borders, as well as from firing longer-range munitions than had been officially supplied to Ukraine, such as the MGM-140 Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMS).

A senior official from a NATO member state told Yahoo News that Washington’s technical limitations on the HIMARS was more of a public relations exercise than a severe logistical handicap. “It’s designed to signal to the Russians, and to a number of wobbly European countries, that American strategic weapons aren’t going to be used to whack Russia.”

As per the Journal, the Biden administration is wary of a third-party nation providing Ukraine with ATACMS — something it could not do without U.S. consent, given the end-user agreement attached to these munitions. “Even if the Ukrainians used another multiple-launch rocket platform in their arsenal to fire the ATACMS,“ the official said, “they still have to get Washington’s OK. So disabling HIMARS is redundant.”

Furthermore, the Biden administration’s much-advertised condition of how and where U.S. weaponry can be used in this war has already been quietly violated. The same is true of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s ever-blurry “red lines” of escalation.

Ukraine has reportedly used American-made HARM anti-radiation missiles, for instance, to hit air defense targets in Belgorod, the Russian oblast north of Kharkiv. The Pentagon never explicitly acknowledged sending these missiles as part of any U.S. aid package to Ukraine, and only confirmed their use in the field after wreckage of HARM batteries, recovered in Russia, circulated on Russian social media.

And yet there is no indication that U.S. supplies of HARM missiles have dried up as a result. Nor has the Kremlin raised a public fuss about the attacks, possibly owing to fear that in doing so it would only encourage more hawkish elements within Russia’s security establishment to demand that Putin retaliate against the enemy his propaganda claims Moscow is really at war with anyway: NATO.

Patriots, as strictly defensive weapons systems, are less of a headache to the strategic communications specialists in both Washington and Moscow.

Protecting Ukrainian apartment blocks, power grids and substations, after all, is hardly aggressive or escalatory. And in light of Russia’s constant bombardment of civilian areas and critical infrastructure, bolstering Ukraine’s air defense capability isn’t just about protecting Ukrainians anymore. Hundreds of Western diplomats and their support staff reside and work in Kyiv and other cities in Ukraine. Their lives are in danger every time a fusillade of Russian Kalibr missiles or Iranian Shahed-136 drones rains down on them. The argument for bolstering Ukraine’s air defense capability is therefore a relatively easier one for policy planners to make.

However, a key issue for Western logisticians will be keeping Ukraine supplied with the extremely expensive and sophisticated Patriots. Each missile costs between $3 miilion and $6 million and requires time to manufacture. And because the missile system is extremely bulky, it’s not easy to transport. Teaching Ukrainian operators how to use Patriots could take several months, although Western trainers have remarked on the shallow learning curve eager Ukrainians have so far demonstrated when it comes to “absorbing” new military technology.

A U.S. Army officer familiar with the Pentagon’s security assistance to Ukraine told Yahoo News, speaking on the condition of anonymity: “In order to train Ukrainians on HIMARS, the U.S. had to teach a six-week period of instruction for the crew and seven-week period of instruction for dire direction (doing the calculations for the fire missions). The U.S. trained both in under three weeks due to the Ukrainians’ willingness to learn and work without rest. For Patriot training, which takes 16 to 20 weeks for the jobs required, the Ukrainians could learn in as soon as eight to 10 weeks, assuming training hasn’t already started.”