Ukrainian Troops To Start Patriot Missile Training This Month

The Ukrainian military is becoming one of the most advanced in the world. JL 

Brendan Cole reports in Newsweek:

Training on the Patriot missile system that the U.S. is supplying Kyiv will start in January, the White House said. The Patriot system is a ground-based, mobile missile defense interceptor, which can detect, track and engage drones as well as cruise missiles, and short-range or tactical ballistic missiles. Each Patriot battery has a truck-mounted launching system with eight launchers that can hold up to four missile interceptors each, a ground radar, a control station and a generator. A "line battery" of 90 soldiers is required for the control and command of the system

Training on the Patriot missile system that the U.S. is supplying Kyiv will start in January, the White House said, amid anticipation over whether the equipment could mark a turning point in the war in Ukraine.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was in Washington, D.C., on December 21, when U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced that the missile batteries would be part of a $1.85 billion military package for Kyiv to help shoot down Russia's constant barrage of missiles.

Although Washington has provided other significant military aid, such as the High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems, or HIMARS, the Patriots will be the most advanced surface-to-air missiles that the U.S. has given Ukraine.

During a briefing on Friday, when asked about the timeline for the missile systems, Laura Cooper, deputy assistant secretary of defense, responded: "We will start training for Patriot later this month.

"I'm not going to be able to give you a specific timeframe for the completion of training, it will take several months," she said."Patriot is not an immediate term capability. But we will start that training very soon," she added. Newsweek has contacted the Pentagon for further comment.

The Patriot system is a ground-based, mobile missile defense interceptor, which can detect, track and engage drones as well as cruise missiles, and short-range or tactical ballistic missiles.

Each Patriot battery has a truck-mounted launching system with eight launchers that can hold up to four missile interceptors each, a ground radar, a control station and a generator. Reuters reported that U.S. officials said the system will first arrive in Germany, where Ukrainian troops will learn how to use them.

However, Mark Cancian, a retired U.S. military officer at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told The Washington Post in December that the complexity of the equipment is likely to make the Pentagon "very nervous."

Experts say that training on the Patriot takes about six months and as a measure of its complexity, in the U.S. Army, a "line battery" of upwards of 90 soldiers is required for the ongoing control and command of the system, which costs around $1 billion, not including the missiles.

A single Ukrainian Patriot missile battery is unlikely to change the course of a war, with the Modern War Institute saying that it doesn't provide "any substantial upgrade" from the Buks or S-300s that the Ukrainians are already using.

 

However, it said the real tactical advantage of the newest Patriot missile is its ability to intercept tactical ballistic missiles like the 9K720 Iskander, which the Russians are using much fewer of since the first few months of the war due to limited supply.

While considered "the gold standard" of air defense, Patriot systems can only protect upwards of 40 miles of an area, meaning that a number of systems are needed to provide Ukraine with the protection it seeks, according to the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft.