Ukraine's use of American Patriot air defense systems in the criminal war unleashed by Russia dispelled any doubts about the effectiveness of these systems.
How Ukraine helped prove the high effectiveness of the Patriot air defense system
Journalists of the publication, citing analysts, note that the effectiveness of interception of American systems in past conflicts has raised doubts.
There were even debates about the advisability of sending them to Ukraine.
The first Patriot arrived in Ukraine in April 2023, and currently the country has at least three, and possibly five such systems.
Frederik Mertens, an analyst at the Hague Center for Strategic Studies, notes that Patriot's work in Ukraine has become an "undeniable success."
The first Patriots, as noted in the publication, were developed by the United States in the 1960s of the last century.
They were first used during the Persian Gulf War in 1990.
The expert notes that Patriot behaved erratically during the Persian Gulf War.
In particular, there were questions about its effectiveness against Iraqi Scud missiles.
Patriot was also used by US allies in the Iraq war, where a number of errors were recorded, including the downing of allied aircraft when the system mistakenly identified the aircraft as an Iraqi missile.
Since the Gulf War, the system has been enhanced with the system's most advanced missile, the PAC-3, which was first used in the Iraq War.
Currently, it is not confirmed whether Ukraine uses the earlier model PAC-2 or PAC-3.
What contributed to the success of Ukraine's use of the Patriot air defense system
The analyst pointed out that the Russian occupying army pursued the goal of conducting a missile attack so sophisticated as to hit the Patriots received by Ukraine from the start, but failed.
There is no independently confirmed data on exactly how many missiles, drones or planes were shot down by Ukrainian air defense systems, in particular Patriot.
There is also no official confirmation of the destruction of at least one American complex.
US military personnel who helped train the Ukrainians recently told the BBC that the Ukrainian military is "impressive" with its mastery of the system.
The director of the American analytical center "Defense Priorities" Rajan Menon believes that the success is partly connected with the fact that it was possible to integrate American complexes into the network of Soviet-era systems and systems provided by NATO.
For some experts, Ukraine's unexpected victory was the fact that the Patriot was shot down by the Russian Kinzhal hypersonic missiles, which, according to the Russian Federation, cannot be intercepted.
Jan Kallberg, a defense and security expert at the Center for European Policy Analysis, put forward a theory shared by a number of experts that Ukraine used the Patriot as part of an audacious plan to shoot down Russian fighter jets.
Currently, as noted in the article, there is a threat that Ukraine will simply run out of anti-aircraft missiles, and the United States will not make new deliveries due to the high cost of Patriot missiles — from 2 to 4 million dollars per piece.
