Latest news with #PatriotMissiles
Russia Today
27-05-2025
- Politics
- Russia Today
Ukraine will have to pay for new Patriots
The administration of US President Donald Trump would be willing to sell Ukraine Patriot air defense systems, the Washington Post has reported, citing officials in Kiev. Ukraine's Vladimir Zelensky has increasingly implored Washington to provide more Patriot missiles and units in recent months amid dwindling stockpiles. Kiev believes that the current US administration 'will not give it away for free' but will be ready to sell the billion dollar air defense system and ammunition for it, the WaPo wrote on Monday, citing a senior Ukrainian official. 'They think like business people. If I give you something, you have to give me something in return,' the outlet cited the official as saying. Kiev has mostly requested the air defense systems and missiles as military aid from the Trump administration, 'which, frankly, we don't have,' Secretary of State Marco Rubio told lawmakers in a Senate meeting last week. Washington is instead pushing for NATO allies to donate the US-made armaments from their own stockpiles, but 'none of these countries want to give up their Patriot systems either,' he said. 'We can't make them fast enough.' Trump has expressed growing impatience with the pace of peace talks around the ongoing conflict. Zelensky's rhetoric is doing Ukraine 'no favors,' he wrote on Truth Social on Monday, adding that 'everything out of his mouth causes problems, I don't like it, and it better stop.' He also condemned Russia's increased long-range strikes on Ukraine, claiming the attacks are happening 'for no reason whatsoever.' Russian forces have intensified large-scale strikes against drone and missile production facilities in Ukraine last week, the Defense Ministry in Moscow has confirmed. The attacks were a retaliation for Ukraine's escalating strikes on Russian civilian infrastructure, and solely targeted Ukrainian military sites, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told the press on Monday. Russian air defenses have intercepted nearly 1,000 Ukrainian fixed-wing UAVs over the country in the past week, Defense Ministry reports say.
Yahoo
26-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Germany may send Ukraine older PAC-2 missiles for Patriot air defenses, WP reports
Germany is planning to send Ukraine older PAC-2 Patriot missiles to replenish its dwindling stockpiles of air defense ammunition, the Washington Post (WP) reported on May 26, citing a European diplomat. The U.S.-made Patriot air defense system is widely recognized for its high-precision detection, tracking, and interception of aircraft, cruise, and ballistic missiles. Kyiv is running out of ammunition for its Patriots as Russia intensifies its drone and missile attacks. In early May, the U.S. authorized Germany to transfer 100 Patriot air defense missiles to Ukraine. Speaking to the WP anonymously, a European diplomat in Kyiv said that Berlin plans to send older PAC-2 missiles, which are less effective at intercepting ballistic missiles than the newer PAC-3 Patriots. A senior Ukrainian intelligence official, also speaking on the condition of anonymity, said that even PAC-3 missiles cannot intercept Russia's Oreshnik, the new intermediate-range ballistic missile (IRBM) Moscow used to attack the city of Dnipro in November. The European diplomat added that the only other air defense weapon potentially capable of shooting down ballistics is the Aster, a French-Italian missile. This capability has not yet been proven, he said. The more modern PAC-3 missiles are designed with "hit-to-kill" precision targeting technology, which the older PAC-2s lack. PAC-3s are also smaller, lighter, and more manueverable than PAC-2 missiles. A standard Patriot launcher can fit 16 PAC-3s at once, compared to only four PAC-2s. The claim that Germany's latest air defense package may consist of less effective missiles comes after Ukraine endured three consecutive nights of large-scale Russian attacks. Moscow bombarded Kyiv and other cities with ballistic and cruise missiles while also launching a record number of drones at Ukraine. After the first attack, Air Force spokesperson Yurii Ihnat said that Russia has upgraded its ballistic missiles with radar decoys and evasive maneuvers, making them potentially harder to intercept even by Patriot systems. President Volodymyr Zelensky has offered to buy 10 Patriot batteries from Washington, but U.S. President Donald Trump dismissed the request. U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on May 20 that Washington is looking for other NATO nations to supply Ukraine with additional Patriots. Read also: Ukraine war latest: West no longer imposing range restrictions on arms for Ukraine, Germany's Merz says We've been working hard to bring you independent, locally-sourced news from Ukraine. Consider supporting the Kyiv Independent.
Russia Today
26-05-2025
- Politics
- Russia Today
Ukraine will have to pay for new Patriots — WaPo
The administration of US President Donald Trump would be willing to sell Ukraine Patriot air defense systems, the Washington Post has reported, citing officials in Kiev. Ukraine's Vladimir Zelensky has increasingly implored Washington to provide more Patriot missiles and units in recent months amid dwindling stockpiles. Kiev believes that the current US administration 'will not give it away for free' but will be ready to sell the billion dollar air defense system and ammunition for it, the WaPo wrote on Monday, citing a senior Ukrainian official. 'They think like business people. If I give you something, you have to give me something in return,' the outlet cited the official as saying. Kiev has mostly requested the air defense systems and missiles as military aid from the Trump administration, 'which, frankly, we don't have,' Secretary of State Marco Rubio told lawmakers in a Senate meeting last week. Washington is instead pushing for NATO allies to donate the US-made armaments from their own stockpiles, but 'none of these countries want to give up their Patriot systems either,' he said. 'We can't make them fast enough.' Trump has expressed growing impatience with the pace of peace talks around the ongoing conflict. Zelensky's rhetoric is doing Ukraine 'no favors,' he wrote on Truth Social on Monday, adding that 'everything out of his mouth causes problems, I don't like it, and it better stop.' He also condemned Russia's increased long-range strikes on Ukraine, claiming the attacks are happening 'for no reason whatsoever.' Russian forces have intensified large-scale strikes against drone and missile production facilities in Ukraine last week, the Defense Ministry in Moscow has confirmed. The attacks were a retaliation for Ukraine's escalating strikes on Russian civilian infrastructure, and solely targeted Ukrainian military sites, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told the press on Monday. Russian air defenses have intercepted nearly 1,000 Ukrainian fixed-wing UAVs over the country in the past week, Defense Ministry reports say.
Washington Post
26-05-2025
- Politics
- Washington Post
Slammed by Russian missiles, Ukraine seeks more U.S. air defense systems
KYIV — Ukraine is increasingly worried about securing more U.S.-made Patriot air defense systems, as stockpiles sent during the Biden administration are drying up and the new administration is resistant to sending more, according to six Ukrainian and Western officials. While Russia bombards Ukraine with drones and cruise missiles, it is the ballistic missiles that are the most feared, and they can only be reliably countered by Patriot missiles. Ballistic missiles travel several miles per second and they obliterated half of Ukraine's power capacity in strikes on power plants in 2023 and 2024.
Express Tribune
24-05-2025
- Business
- Express Tribune
What an incentivised or a punished Iran means for ME
The writer is a non-resident research fellow in the research and analysis department of IPRI and an Assistant Professor at DHA Suffa University Karachi Listen to article The international system was always anarchic, but the current shift in the balance of global influence is making it more turbulent and uncertain. For good or for bad, the global geopolitical landscape is experiencing a shift, and the great responsibility of all stakeholders, including the state practitioners and policymakers, is to correctly read these changes and make sure that the choices they make enable the countries that they lead to stand on the right side of history. Uncertainty of the international system is aptly described in how Iran, despite engaging in the fifth round of nuclear talks with the US, is not buoyed by the idea of reconciliation but is more concerned and threatened by the growing possibility of an Israeli air strike on its nuclear facilities. No central authority, not even the US, can probably guarantee that no such military action will take place, thus making the international system so anarchic. China and Russia lead the change the world is witnessing in the global balance of influence. That change is well demonstrated in the way both these great powers view the uncertain times that Iran is experiencing. The geopolitical positioning of Russia and China on Iran matters, and both the US and Israel would do well to correctly read their position before the game-changing decision about Iran is finally taken — integrating Iran in the global economy or taking a military action against it. Russia is fighting a war in Ukraine, and ideally, it should be happy to see its main adversary preoccupied in the Middle East. This diversion of American attention suits Russia, and it is not merely the diversion of attention but also the diversion of American capabilities, as was evident in the aftermath of the October 7 attack by Hamas when the Biden administration provided additional batteries of Patriot Missiles to Israel, which Kyiv desperately needed. Any war in the Middle East will drive up the prices of oil; and under Western sanctions, increased oil prices mean the generation of more revenue by the war-hit Russian economy. Russia's position on Syria is sensitive. During his visit to Saudi Arabia, President Trump announced the lifting of sanctions on Syria — a long-time Russian satellite state. It has been acting as the Russian platform for projecting Russian power in the Eastern Mediterranean through the Russian air and naval bases there. The Syrian president has also stated that, given the right conditions, Syria may one day consider joining the Abraham Accords. So one can easily say that the balance of influence in this strategically important country in the Middle East is shifting from the Russian to the American side. This diminishing Russian influence in Syria also means bad news for Russia in other strategically important places. Russia's ability to export military influence and control to Libya and the Sahel, where it has an expanding presence, will also be affected. If a war erupts in the Middle East following an Israeli air strike on Iran, then geopolitically, Russia may find opportunities and the US and its allies, including Israel and the Arab states in the Persian Gulf, may only be exposed to increased risks and threats. A war in the Middle East would be bad news for the Chinese economy. It is the economy that led China to broker the historic diplomatic normalisation between Iran and Saudi Arabia. China transports $280 billion worth of goods annually through the Bab al-Mandeb Strait in the Red Sea, which constitutes 20% of China's overall maritime trade. The American myth that China is interested in fomenting global chaos to create American preoccupation in the troubled spots to undermine the American-led international order is based on a wrong assumption. The Chinese economy cannot afford global chaos, or more specifically, a war erupting in the Middle East. Strategically, CPEC and BRI are Chinese projects designed to avert such risks by building more diverse supply chains. Iran is China's strategic partner, and without China's help, it would be difficult for Iran, under sanctions, to sustain its economy. China would neither want any external power to exercise dominance and control in the Indian Ocean region. More a commercial than a war-fighting water body, China will do everything in its power to not allow the Indian Ocean to lose its globally accepted standing and status of being only a commercial water body. Saudi Arabia, under MBS, also follows a consistent policy that states that the future of the Middle East should not be shaped by force. He is all set to safeguard his Vision 2030. MBS visions not ballistic missiles but tourists flying to and from countries in the Middle East. The initiation of change in Saudi Arabia has its roots in how MBS took a huge political risk in sidelining his religious police and confronting the conservative backlash. He masterminded the change in the balance of influence in Saudi society by unshackling it from the age-long chains of religiosity. There were political risks, but he took them. Today, Neom City, with over 50 luxury hotels being built along the Red Sea and the world's tallest building being built in Riyadh, is all a testimony to MBS's resolve to make Saudi Arabia part of the modern world. If a nuclear deal between the US and Iran materialises, then after a gap of 45 years, it will open up the possibility of the restoration of diplomatic relations between the two countries. Such a scenario in itself is likely to bring huge geopolitical changes in the Middle East. Iranian proxies may no longer pursue goals that represented a defiant Iran. Incentivised Iran will find it reasonable to withdraw support to all its proxies. Imagine the hope this gives to the innocent people residing in the Middle Eastern conflict zones. Like the 25 million people living in Yemen, a country so poor that it imports 90% of its food. President Trump led a $1 billion bombing campaign against this country because the Houthis were executing drone attacks and firing missiles at ships, thus violating the freedom of navigation of ships in international waters. This is considered justified under international law, but criticised by those who read and understand international law, but cannot understand why the same is allowed to be violated in Gaza. If Iran and the US strike a deal and base their future relationship on reconciliation, then the resumption of harmonious relations between the two will not be possible unless Israel fits into the equation. If peace is to be given a chance in the Middle East, then the US will have to reconsider its policy towards Israel. Surely, a US-Iran deal will only materialise after Iran can extract such a guarantee from the US.
