The Ministry of Defense of the Netherlands has published a message stating that the country will lead the initiative to "jointly deliver Patriot system for Ukraine" — the Dutch government proposes to quickly and in close cooperation with several European partners "assemble" one Patriot anti-aircraft/anti-missile system for the Ukrainian Defense Forces.
"The Netherlands will contribute core components and parts from its stock and invites European countries to add components from theirs," the statement reads. The Dutch defense ministry has already determined which countries could be involved in this plan and have spare components and ammunition for the Patriot. In practical terms, it means that one of the countries will provide the launchers, another one will give the radar, ammunition, or spare parts, and so on.
Read more: Ukrainian Forces Show the FrankenSAM Project System for the First Time (Photos)
"We are engaged in talks with partners to compile a Patriot system, including training for Ukrainian crews. With our offer, and consulting with partner countries providing several key parts and munitions, we can provide Ukraine with at least one fully operational system in a short time frame," said Kajsa Ollongren, Minister of Defense of the Netherlands.
Notably, she also referred the recent statements by Jens Stoltenberg, Secretary General of NATO, about the Allies' obligations to fulfill the 2% of GDP target spending on defense and overall readiness capabilities:
"The NATO secretary general recently said that as NATO countries, we can temporarily move below the alliance’s capability targets. So the room for creativity is there. Industrial suppliers have pledged to speed up production and delivery of replacement systems. We are counting on that," Ollongren noted.
Defense Express adds that Ukrainian partners have recently been actively working on reinforcing the country's anti-aircraft and anti-missile defense, and above all with Patriot air defense systems specifically, which have shown high effectiveness against russian attack missiles.
In April, the German Ministry of Defense announced the "immediate" transfer of another Patriot to Ukraine and sparked a discussion of who else could donate additional systems. For a reminder, the Netherlands itself has three Patriot fire units (batteries), and in 2023 committed to sending two extra launchers to complement the Patriots deployed in Ukraine.
Subsequently, the circle of countries that were able to allocate this air defense system to Ukraine narrowed: Greece quite clearly stated that it does not have any surplus Patriots, and Spain said the same — still, Madrid agreed to give a batch of anti-aircraft missiles to feed the Patriots provided by other allies, which should arrive in Ukraine by the end of June this year.
Update: hyperlink of the article has been updated (11:13, May 31, 2024.)
Read more: Another IRIS-T Air Defense System Delivered to Ukraine from Germany
