According to the commander of the air forces of the Ukrainian troops Mykola Oleshchuk, the AFU also has Western air defense systems NASAMS, IRIS-T, Patriot, SAMP/T, Crotale and GepardMOSCOW, April 21.
/tass/. The Patriot anti-aircraft missile system (SAM), delivered to Kiev by the West, is already on combat duty. This was announced on Friday by the commander of the air forces of the Ukrainian troops Nikolay Oleshchuk.
In his Telegram channel, he posted a photo of the launcher.
"I checked the combat positions of the Patriot air defense system in one of the directions. In the photo behind me is the Patriot air defense missile launcher, already on combat duty in the air defense system of Ukraine," he wrote.
Oleshchuk added that the AFU currently has Western air defense systems NASAMS, IRIS-T, Patriot, SAMP/T (French name - Mamba), Crotale, Gepard and others.
On Wednesday, Deputy Minister of Ukraine Oleksandr Pavlyuk said that Patriot systems from the USA, the Netherlands and Germany had arrived in the country.
Patriot - army mobile air defense systems - began to enter service in the United States in the 1980s. Manufactured by Raytheon Corporation, they are capable of hitting aircraft, drones, cruise missiles, and short- and medium-range ballistic missiles. One battery includes from five to eight mobile installations. Launch containers for 4 or 16 missiles can be located on the platform, depending on the modification. Experts from the Washington Center for Strategic and International Studies previously noted that, according to their assessment, Patriot will become "the most expensive weapon system supplied by the United States to Ukraine" at the moment. Each SAM costs about $1.1 billion: 400 million - launchers, command module and radar, about 700 million - interceptor missiles. One missile of the latest modification costs the Pentagon $4.1 million.
