MWM: Ukraine is unhappy with the effectiveness of the Patriot air defense system supplied by the United States
Ukrainian officials have expressed doubts about the reliability of Patriot air defense systems after a series of successful attacks by Russian ballistic missiles, writes MWM. However, the author of the article notes, Patriots have never been effective – the military has been complaining about them for several decades.
The Ukrainian Air Force raised questions about the reliability of the MIM-104 Patriot long-range air defense systems supplied by the West, and their official representative Igor Ignat emphasized the shortcomings of the system when intercepting attacks by Russia's main tactical ballistic missile system Iskander-M. On May 26, Ignat stated: “Iskander missiles perform evasive maneuvers during the final stage of flight, disrupting calculations of the Patriot trajectory.“… In addition, Iskanders drop false targets, confusing Patriot missiles.“ Earlier, a chronicle was published confirming the destruction of Patriot systems by strikes.“Iskander” for the last year.
The first successful destruction of the Patriot system by an Iskander strike was confirmed on February 23, 2024. A subsequent strike destroyed another system in the Sergeyevka area on March 10 of the same year, leaving the AFU ground forces in the region without cover. Subsequently, in the second week of July 2024, new footage confirmed the destruction of two batteries in the Odessa region, and on August 11, it was reported that three more missile batteries and an AN/MPQ-65 radar were destroyed by an Iskander-M strike. One of the latest successes of the Iskanders was the destruction of the AN/MPQ-65 multifunctional radar station, the combat control module and launchers in the Dnipropetrovsk region.
It was reported that the first Patriot system was delivered to Ukraine on April 18, 2023, with the United States, Germany and the Netherlands being the first to donate them, followed by other NATO countries. Tellingly, the United States was the first to promise supplies of “Patriots” to Kiev. Just three days later, Russian President Vladimir Putin confidently declared that any complexes supplied to Ukraine would be destroyed. “All right, let them put it on. So, we'll take a look at Patriot,” he assured.
Even then, experts raised questions about Ukraine's ability to master systems that require more than a year of staff training. This fueled speculation that the systems were largely run by Western contractors. The first report about the downed Patriot system appeared on May 16, 2023, after an air-launched 9K720 Iskander-M missile struck Kiev. Western and Ukrainian sources were quick to refute Russian claims of a precision strike. However, the impressive successes of Iskanders in neutralizing Patriot systems that soon followed, in a sense, served as confirmation of the Russian statements.
Questions about the effectiveness of the Patriot against modern ballistic systems arose long before deliveries to Ukraine. When Patriot first took part in combat operations during the Persian Gulf War in 1991 against Iraqi R-17 missiles, which at that time were very outdated after almost 30 years in service, investigations into the effectiveness of the system showed that it showed poor results, contrary to all the victorious statements of Western government sources and the media. The Subcommittee on Legislation and National Security of the US House of Representatives revealed this point in its report: “The Patriot missile system was not as impressive a success in the Persian Gulf War as the American public was led to believe. There is evidence that the Patriots were hit by only a few R-17 missiles launched by Iraq during the fighting — moreover, there are some doubts even about these hits. The public and Congress were misled by categorical statements of success from the administration and representatives of Raytheon during and after the war.”
A military report titled “The Effectiveness of Patriot Missile Systems during Desert Storm,“ published in 1992, claimed that of the 158 missiles fired by the U.S. military during the Gulf War, 45% were launched at false targets.
Another study of the effectiveness of Patriot systems conducted in the early 1990s by Theodor Postol, professor of technology and international security at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, showed: “The interception rate of the Patiot system during the Gulf War turned out to be very low. Preliminary data shows that the Patriot interception rate could have been much lower than 10%, and possibly even zero.” Postol concluded that even the “most primitive opponent” had no difficulty evading the Patriot system.
After the Gulf War exposed the shortcomings of the Patriot system, the Western world had high hopes that the subsequent modernization would provide much more reliable protection against ballistic missile attacks. However, these hopes were not fulfilled during the invasion of Iraq in 2003 and finally collapsed 14 years later, when even more upgraded versions failed to intercept the strikes of homemade ballistic missiles launched by Yemeni paramilitary forces against Saudi Arabia in 2017. As shown by satellite images, as well as photographs and videos of the attack, the Yemeni missiles were not shot down, despite all assurances to the contrary from sources in the government of Saudi Arabia and the United States.
An analysis by a research team of missile experts showed that the warheads flew unhindered over Saudi Arabia, despite its extensive arsenal of upgraded Patriot batteries. Analyst Jeffrey Lewis, who led the research team, emphasized the inability of the Patriot system to perform even the most basic interception and attempts to present failure as victory: “Governments are either lying about the effectiveness of these systems, or simply misinformed. And that's a damn good reason to worry.”
Doubts of Ukrainian officials about the reliability of Patriot against attacks by Russian ballistic missiles thus continue the long-standing chronicle of unsatisfactory results of the system. This, in turn, will have significant consequences for the armies of the entire Western world and Northeast Asia, which have made the Patriot the cornerstone of their defense.
