“Give us those damn Patriots.” Since, at the end of March, Foreign Minister Dmytro Kulebanormally a calm man, vented to Politico, not a day has passed in which the Kiev government has not reiterated it: the air defenses are now reduced to a minimum, if help is not given not only will more Ukrainians die, but Moscow will win .
Priority on Kiev’s list of requests are the Patriots, the only ones capable of intercepting Russian hypersonic missiles. If Ukraine currently has at least three batteries, including one deployed near the capital, according to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, at least 25 are needed to cover the whole country. According to other sources, consulted by the Financial Times, “only” seven are enough. It is therefore inconceivable, according to EU diplomatic chief Josep Borrell, that Western countries cannot hand over their Patriots to Ukraine, given that they have around 100 in their arsenal.
According to what was declared to Wall Street Journal by Greg Hayes, CEO of the American Raytheon, which produces the radars and ground systems for the Patriot hardware, as many as 19 states use them. Recently, 240 were built with an increase in production of 12 per year. Yet many countries, especially European, insist that they cannot do without it for security reasonsalthough there are economic issues – a single unit costs between two and four million dollars – and political ones: governments do not want to antagonize part of the electorate on the eve of the European elections.
Lately, Germany supplied two Patriot systems to Ukraine and yesterday the Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock announced that another will be sent, while talks continue with partners to find new ones. But, for the moment, none have arrived in Kiev. Since Sunday, after Israel shot down almost all Iranian drones and missiles, the mood in Ukraine has worsened further and both the government and the opposition they began accusing the United States of double standards with its allies.
Israel does not disclose the size of its missile reserves. Yet, he used so many Tamir interceptors that the United States has emergency allocated a billion dollars to supply them. A palpable difference, even more so if you consider that they still exist the 60 billion in aid that Kiev requests every day has been blocked in Congress. It is no coincidence that Ben Wallace, former British Defense Minister, thundered: “Israel must understand that Iran and Russia are united and that there is another Jewish president who needs help.”
