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Ukraine currently has 2 NASAMS batteries, 1 IRIS-T and no Patriots yet. Even the promised numbers are not enough to cover the Ukrainian territory. I was talkin

Ukraine currently has 2 NASAMS batteries, 1 IRIS-T and no Patriots yet. Even the promised numbers are not enough to cover the Ukrainian territory. I was talking about Soviet made AA missiles for e.g. S-300 and Buks which still represent most of Ukrainian long/medium range AA. > but the big threat currently is the lame Iranian Shaheed drones. The actual big threat is that Ukrainian long/medium range AA gets attrited too much and Russia will be able to use their bombers.

greedo 4y ago
Patriots should be there by summer, and IHAWK launchers as well from Spain (with refurbed US missiles). Italy and France are providing at least one SAMP/T system, which is comparable to the Patriot. That system should arrive this spring. I think Ukraine has been getting reloads of 9M82/9M83 from either Slovakia or Bulgaria. But the issue isn't reloads so much as TELs. Ukraine has pretty deep missile inventories, but not enough TOR/BUK/S300V launchers and radars. Eventually they'll run out of spares and need to rely completely on Western SAMs. I can't see the VKS risking any bombers over Ukraine. They'll continue to use them for launching missiles from Belgograd Oblast, but the PR damage if a Backfire or Blackjack was shot down would be unbearable to the Russians.