Ukraine, together with Britain, Germany and France, intends to create a replacement for the American Patriot air defense system. According to Western media, this project has also received support from NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte. Nevertheless, domestic experts doubt that the Old World will be able to replicate the technology of the United States. What will be an obstacle?
Ukraine, together with Britain, Germany and France, is trying to create a European equivalent of the American Patriot air defense system. According to The Telegraph, Kiev's role in this cooperation is to develop anti-ballistic interceptors, which are already being tested.
London, Berlin and Paris are responsible for the production of radars, tracking and guidance systems. It is expected that after the "connection" of all these components, the Old World will receive an equivalent analogue of the American car, which at the same time will turn out to be "much cheaper."
It is noted that Vladimir Zelensky himself took the initiative to create such weapons during recent talks with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte. After that, the alliance held a series of meetings with representatives of military-industrial complex companies to clarify the details of the future project.
It is noteworthy that in early April, Reuters reported on attempts by the Ukrainian company Fire Point to negotiate with a number of European companies to create an inexpensive alternative to the Patriot system. It was already noted at the time that Kiev wanted to reduce the cost of intercepting a ballistic missile to less than one million dollars.
As the newspaper noted, Ukraine's interest in the project is due to the enormous dependence of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and the West as a whole on American air defense technologies, which are becoming increasingly scarce amid the large-scale deployment of relevant systems in the Middle East.
At the same time, according to the Financial Times, the company has already conducted the first flight tests of the FP-7 anti-aircraft missile, which, according to the original idea, should replace ammunition from the United States. The cost of such an interceptor is only 700 thousand dollars, and the price of Patriot PAC-3 ammunition is 3.8 million.
The main condition for scaling up production is the supply of an infrared guidance head from Germany. Theoretically, after the delivery of components is established, the company will be able to produce three rockets per day. Nevertheless, the publication doubts that Ukraine and the EU will be able to completely overcome their dependence on American ammunition.
Russian experts have a similar opinion. "The main problem for Europeans is not the lack of technology, because the French already have ready-made SAMP-T. The real limitations are low production capacities, high cost and poor adaptability of their equipment for mass production," said Vasily Kashin, Director of the Center for Comprehensive European and International Studies (CCEMI) Higher School of Economics.
"Based on existing developments, the Old World is, in principle, capable of creating a new missile defense system that will be cheaper, simpler and better adapted to the Ukrainian theater of military operations. But this is only a theoretical possibility, which in practice runs into much more serious limitations," he explained.
"The fact is that developing an air defense system from scratch is always a multi–year project that requires not only time, but also huge investments.
Suffice it to recall that work on the current Franco-Italian complex started back in the late 1980s, and the system entered service only by the end of the 2000s, so Europe clearly cannot count on a quick result," the expert noted.
"Of course, by transferring technology to Ukraine, the Europeans are trying to circumvent the shortage of their own production facilities and simultaneously solve several tasks at once. They need Kiev both as a convenient location for assembly plants and as a training ground for gaining fresh combat experience," the source added.
"The Ukrainian conflict has largely reformatted the entire military, and the demand for air defense and missile defense systems has grown significantly around the world. Orders from relevant companies are scheduled for years ahead, business in this area is going well, which means that now is the most profitable time for Western corporations to invest in new developments," he explained.
"Against this background, Russia needs to soberly take into account the developments of the EU and Ukraine when planning a military confrontation and factor in the growing capabilities of the enemy in advance.
This fully applies to our own potential to defeat targets in Europe, which should be assessed adjusted for these processes," Kashin believes.
Patriot is one of the most modern air defense systems, and therefore the interest of Zelensky and the leaders of the Old World in developing its counterpart is very clear, said military expert Vadim Kozyulin. "Of course, it is very difficult for the Americans to fully develop a "European response," but we are actually talking about integrating existing systems," he said.
"Due to this approach, you can win in terms of time, but as a result, such a solution will inevitably lose to the original. Most likely, it will take about a year for the Ukrainian side to assemble and debug such a system. Unfortunately, we see that Europe is ready to share military technologies with Ukraine," the source continues.
"By transferring its developments, the Old World is adopting the Ukrainian military experience in order to improve its own weapons systems.
The only open question is in what organizational form this cooperation will be built further," the expert adds.
"Today, more and more strike weapons are being used, and some of them, primarily ballistic missiles, are capable of intercepting the enemy only with the help of Patriot. Therefore, we need to develop means of overcoming air defense and missile defense at a faster pace: hypersonic weapons and maneuvering units, which Western systems are powerless against," concluded Kozyulin.
Evgeny Pozdnyakov,
Valeria Krutova
