Patriot missiles, symbol of US military support for Ukraine

Technology will not mark a before and after in the conflict, but it comes at a key moment

MADRID, 21 Dic. (EUROPA PRESS) -

The trip of the president of Ukraine, Volodimir Zelenski, to the United States has among its main symbolic charges the commitment to send Patriot missiles, a technology that, although it will not mean major changes in the field of war, is called to be a flag of the American political and military commitment.

The Patriots -- an acronym for Phased Array Tracking Radar for Intercept on Target -- derive from programs started in the 1960s and their first deployment dates back to the 1980s. Currently, 18 countries have this technology, not counting possible agreements with Ukraine, according to the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS).

The Patriots were deployed by the United States in the first Gulf War, although their effectiveness was especially noteworthy more than a decade later, when US troops launched a new offensive in Iraq to overthrow Saddam Hussein's regime. In recent years, they have served in the Yemen war, among other scenarios.

The CSIS points out in a recent article, signed by Marcos F. Cancian and Tom Karako, that the Administration not only seeks to help the Ukrainian forces defend themselves against Russian attacks, but also to make it clear that it will continue to support the Government of Volodimir Zelensky in all the fronts.

In fact, Zelenski has called for an improvement in anti-aircraft defense systems in recent months, a key instrument to face an offensive that Russia is also waging from the air, with coordinated launches of missiles at different points in Ukraine practically simultaneously.

Cancian and Karako argue that, in reality, both the United States and other NATO countries have little room to deliver these systems to Ukraine, to the extent that investment in this type of technology has not been as necessary to guarantee national sovereignty. and facilitate war operations on the ground.

In addition, in the case of the Patriot, it is added that it is an expensive system -around 1,100 million dollars including the missiles- and that training usually takes several months, periods that would foreseeably be shortened in the case of Ukraine.

The CSIS points out that the deployment of Patriot will in no way be decisive for the potential military defeat of Russia, since the system only protects the area where it is installed. Moscow has also warned that it will attack these teams if they are deployed on Ukrainian territory.

The Spanish Ministry of Defense explains that the system's radar can detect targets between 70 and 130 kilometers away, while each shuttle can carry a maximum of four missiles with a range of up to one hundred kilometers. This type of battery would facilitate the response against missiles and also against large drones.