Ukraine is getting absolutely hammered at the moment by Shahed drones and various types of Russian missile fired from ships, aircraft and from land.
Ukraine is shooting a certain percentage down, but some always get through. And the more that are fired at Ukraine, the more that get through the defences. It’s a numbers game.
Ukraine therefore needs far more air defence systems. Of all types:
- Long-range SAM systems (e.g. Patriot, SAMP/T)
- Medium-range SAM systems (e.g. NASAMS, IRIS-T SLM)
- Short-range SAM systems (e.g. IRIS-T SLS, Sky Sabre [yet to be delivered])
- Electronic Warfare (EW) systems [all sorts ranging from systems to protect tanks and other armoured vehicles, to others to protect high-end stationary assets]
- SHORAD & VSHORAD systems (e.g. Gepard, Stormer, Skyranger, VAMPIRE, EOS Slinger, MSI-DS Terrahawk Paladin [shown in the image above])
- Laser weapons (e.g. DE M-SHORAD)
- Microwave weapons (e.g. Epirus Leonidas, THOR, CHAMP, HiJENKS)
Ukraine also needs imo to look at a modern take on barrage balloons, especially to protect areas from Shahed drones, especially vital infrastructure.
The US has loads of Patriot systems. Surely it could spare a dozen or so more Patriot launchers to Ukraine? Not entire systems, just launchers. Ukraine already has Patriot radars and command trucks. A dozen more launchers would make a big difference I’d have thought, especially if these launchers can be linked to the radars using fibre-optic cables and/or encrypted radio links.
Additionally Ukraine needs the ability to detect and take out these threats at source, but that’s the topic for another diary.