The Ukrainian Defense Forces have used about 700 missiles for Patriot SAM systems over the past four months, repelling terrorist attacks by the russian federation on a number of facilities in Ukraine – primarily civilian energy sector facilities.
Such data was announced by European Commissioner for Defense Andrius Kubilius, EuroNews reports. It is not specified whether this refers exclusively to PAC-3 MSE missiles or to GEM-T too, but the information is provided in the context of the issue of intercepting russian ballistic missiles.
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On the part of Defense Express, we note that this figure looks very high. In particular, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy stated that Ukraine did not have even 800 MSE interceptors during the entire war, which were used by the Gulf countries in the first three days of the US-Israeli operation against Iran.
Andrius Kubilius stressed that as of today, the US cannot meet the demand for Patriot missiles, especially given the insane cost of anti-missiles to intercept Iranian ballistic missiles in hostilities in the Middle East.
The European Commissioner notes that the situation is "critical" for Europe to rapidly expand missile production to meet its own needs and that of Ukraine.
The US is also dissatisfied with the current pace of production of PAC-3 MSE kinetic interceptors, which are effective against ballistics. In particular, last year, Lockheed Martin produced 620 interceptors, and at the beginning of this year it agreed with the Pentagon to increase production to 2,000 missiles, but within a framework agreement until 2033. And later, the US military operations in Iran "unexpectedly" exposed the fact that missiles are needed "here and now".
To replenish the reserves of only those missiles that the US and its allies have used in just a few days at the current pace, it will take approximately 1 year and three months. This calculation does not take into account the costs of such missiles in Ukraine, as well as the need to fulfill current orders, because there are many Patriot SAM operators in the world who are also concerned about having more anti-missile reserves.
Currently, the only option to solve the problem of the Patriot interceptor shortage is to transfer licenses for their production, and in this case it is no longer about business and profits, but primarily about a critically important security issue.
Previously, Defense Express explained Why Even Unlimited Patriot Interceptors Cannot Guarantee Full Protection for Ukraine from russian Ballistic Missiles
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Read more: russia Likely Modified Iranian Ballistic Missiles to Evade Patriot Air Defense Systems
