On Thursday, October 3, the Ministry of National Defense of Romania officially announced the delivery of a Patriot air defense system to Ukraine. The decision to transfer it was made by Bucharest back in June 2024. Of course, this is an important event for Ukraine, as one more Petriot system means a corresponding increase in the ability to protect the sky.
Here we should pay attention to how the Romanians reacted to this event. This will show us how difficult it is now to get air defense systems for Ukraine.
Read more: Lithuania Wants to Deploy 100 Newest Leopard 2A8 Tanks But the Plan Might Be Too Ambitious
According to Defense Romania, the Romanian Armed Forceshad four batteries of Patriot SAM systems at its disposal. They were purchased under a commercial contract, under which three more units are to be delivered.
This presentation can be considered strange, since it is worth considering not only the number of formally available assets, but also the number of actually put into service. So it means that the Romanian Armed Forces de-facto have only one Petriot battery in service, and to use the rest Romania needs to train its personnel (the fourth was transferred to Ukraine).
Romanians also mentioned the statement by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyi that Ukraine has more Patriot systems than officially announced. At the same time, they also emphasized that Ukraine still needs more air defense equipment.
However, as for Romania and its motives, the authors spell out the following: official Bucharest emphasized that it would hand over its Petriot system only on the condition that it would receive another similar system from the United States in return for compensation.
The authors of the resource have also written down the expectation that while Romania is waiting for a new Patriot as a compensator, NATO countries will take a temporary measure by creating so-called air defense missile police mission that will cover Romanian airspace with its SAM systems.
Earlier Defense Express reported that Romania had started training Ukrainian marines on Swedish CB90.
Read more: Lithuanian Ministry of Defense Announced Another Batch of Military Aid to Ukraine
