Senior administration and military officials say President Joe Biden has approved the deployment of another Patriot missile battery to Ukraine as it struggles to fend off Russian attacks on its cities, infrastructure and power grid.
Officials said Biden’s decision came last week after a series of high-level meetings and internal debates over how to meet Ukraine’s urgent need for stronger air defenses without jeopardizing U.S. combat readiness.
The new Patriot system is The United States has sent — will travel from Poland, where the unit has been protecting U.S. rotational forces that are returning to the United States, officials said.
U.S. officials said the system could be deployed to the Ukrainian front lines in the coming days, depending on the maintenance or modifications it requires.
The Patriot missile is considered one of the best U.S. air defense weapons, with a powerful radar system and a mobile launcher that can fire missiles at incoming projectiles.
It’s also one of the scarcest weapon systems in the U.S. arsenal. Pentagon officials declined to say how many it has, but a senior military official said the Army has just 14 Patriot missiles deployed in the U.S. and around the world. U.S. allies also have Patriot missiles, and two of them have sent two to Ukraine, but U.S. officials have said they expect the European power to send more.
Officials say moving critical systems to global hot spots is a sham, assessing which global crises most require them to defend U.S. troops, bases and allies.
The Pentagon’s Central Command, which oversees operations in the Middle East, has had a particularly strong need for Patriot missiles and other air defense systems over the past year, especially since Hamas launched a deadly attack on Israel in October.
The threat to the region came to the fore in April this year, when Iran launches more than 300 ballistic and cruise missilesCombined air and ground defenses by Israel, the United States and other allied forces thwarted most of the attacks with relatively few casualties, but officials said that made it impossible to mobilize any Patriot missile batteries from the area.
As tensions rise on the Korean Peninsula, moving Patriot missile launchers away from positions to defend against possible North Korean attacks was also deemed too risky, officials said.
Pentagon officials do not want to move any missile launchers out of the U.S. There is a Patriot missile launcher at Fort Sill, Oklahoma, that is used to train U.S. and Ukrainian forces, but officials said moving it would affect training. Other missile launchers that protect bases and troops in the United States, including those in Hawaii, are either too far away or essential to homeland defense.
Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III and other senior Pentagon leaders have called on European allies to transfer their systems to Ukraine. “There are countries that have Patriot missiles, so what we’re doing is continuing to engage with those countries,” Mr. Austin told the House Armed Services Committee in April. “I’ve spoken with the leaders of several countries,” he added, “to encourage them to give up more of their capabilities.”
Two other countries have also responded to Ukraine’s request for more Patriot missiles. Germany has deployed one Patriot missile system so far, and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said a second one would be deployed by the end of June. The Netherlands also has a joint Dutch-American launch system deployed in Ukraine and is currently negotiating the deployment of a second system.
Administration officials hope that deploying another U.S. Patriot system will prompt allies to do the same.
“Ukraine needs more, that’s a fact,” Adm. Rob Power, chairman of NATO’s military committee, said in an interview last week. “The nations that have these weapons systems have to make decisions to take greater risks to their own readiness.”
Last month, during a press conference during U.S. Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken’s visit to Kyiv, Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said Ukraine urgently needed “seven batteries, two of which are necessary and were needed yesterday, so that we can protect the city of Kharkiv and the entire Kharkiv region.”
Military analysts say that in addition to Kharkiv, Ukraine must also take urgent measures to protect Odessa in the south and the country’s power grid.
Russia has launched a series of missile and drone attacks on Ukrainian power plants and substations in recent months. Seriously hindered energy infrastructureUkrainian authorities were forced to order rolling blackouts across the country, raising concerns about what will happen when cold weather arrives and heating use increases the load on energy systems.
U.S. officials said there was relatively little debate at the top level about whether to provide Ukraine with another Patriot missile. But officials said Austin and Gen. Charles Q. Brown, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, debated which Patriot missile should be provided to Ukraine.
The two officials assessed that the Pentagon could move the Patriot missile launchers to Poland, which borders Ukraine.
Mr Austin and General Brown will discuss the issue when they travel to Belgium this week for a NATO and Allied Defence Conference.
“I think you can expect air defense to be a topic of discussion for a variety of obvious reasons,” Maj. Gen. Patrick S. Ryder, a Pentagon spokesman, said Monday.
The Patriot missile is the most expensive single weapon system the United States has ever provided to Ukraine. total cost About $1.1 billion: $400 million for the system and $690 million for the missiles.
