Patriots and F-16, the weapons most sought after by Ukraine to confront the new wave of Russian attacks

While Ukraine’s allies are debating about how far Ukraine can fire its weapons inside Russian territory, Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s government has insisted that its partners give the country at least something to repel Moscow’s missiles: air defense systems. The equation is simple. Russia is firing long-range projectiles — such as the KH101 that hit the Okhmatdyt children’s hospital in Kyiv on Monday — far beyond the range of Ukraine’s weapons. And it is doing so with an intensity and tactical flexibility that is overwhelming Ukraine’s defensive shield.

The allies have responded, and at the NATO meeting in Washington on Tuesday, they committed to ensuring that Ukraine has five new batteries for the country’s defense as soon as possible. What’s more, U.S. President Joe Biden announced on Wednesday that the first F-16 fighter jets from Denmark and the Netherlands are on their way to Ukraine and will be operational this summer. The F-16s — while not enough to make a difference on the front — could be use defensively, either to intercept enemy missiles or as a deterrent against possible attacks from Russian fighter jets.

But even the best defensive shields — which are made up of localization and tracking radars, as well as fixed or mobile batteries of surface-to-air interception missiles — have cracks. Of the 38 projectiles launched by Russian forces on Monday morning, eight managed to hit Ukrainian soil, several of them in the capital, Kyiv, which is considered the best protected city in the country. More than 30 people lost their lives in Kyiv, the highest number of fatalities since December 2023.

“Every day, Ukraine is exposed to massive attacks by Russian missiles and drones, most of which are destroyed by Ukraine’s air defense,” Dmytro Zhmailo, a military expert at the Ukrainian Security and Cooperation Center (USCC), explains in an email. “This has been made possible by the well-established echelon protection system, which includes the use of various types of Western and Soviet-made weapons, from the use of mobile fire groups armed with large-caliber machine guns to combat drones to high-speed technology systems like the Patriot to destroy cruise and ballistic missiles.”

Civilian deaths cause enormous pain, and also lead to a growing feeling of vulnerability among the civilian population. This is another reason why anti-aircraft defense systems are so important. As the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense, led by Rustem Umerov, said on Wednesday, the aid announced by NATO includes additional Patriot batteries, SAMP-T system and components for their operation. In total, Kyiv will be able to set up five new anti-aircraft structures.

According to USCC analyst estimates, Ukraine would need 25 more Patriots (or systems of a similar model) to deal with the current intensity of Russian strikes. “These systems will help protect our cities, civilians and critical infrastructure,” said Umerov, about the new NATO package, which has been provided by the United States, Germany, Romania, the Netherlands and Italy.

Furthermore, according to the Ukrainian Defense Ministry, in the coming months, NATO partners will transfer dozens of tactical air defense systems ― which protect the Patriot, the jewel in the crown ―, such as NASAMS (U.S.-Norway), HAWK (U.S.), IRIS (European consortium) and Gepard (Germany). Ukraine has all of these models, but they are not enough and they need ammunition.

The Russian attack on the Okhmatdyt children’s hospital, the largest in all of Ukraine, is a good example of the importance of shielding Ukraine’s skies. Based on the images recorded at the time of the bombing and shared on social networks, weapons experts and audiovisual verification projects such as Bellingcat concluded that the projectile that hit the center’s toxicology area was a KH101. This is a cruise missile with speeds of between 430 and 560 miles per hour and a target range of up to 1,740 miles. In other words, Russian forces can launch it from the area that is out of range for Ukrainian artillery.

The KH101 has been analyzed and gutted by forensics on numerous occasions — it contains Western-made components — and yet it continues to reach Ukrainian territory. Cruise missiles pose an extra challenge for defense systems: they fly at a low altitude, on a flexible, guided route, that is difficult to intercept. But Ukraine’s defenses that Kyiv should be enough to defend against these attacks. However, according to the recording, the projectile feel at a very pronounced downward angle, suggesting that it was not traveling at a low altitude.

On Monday, Russia launched a massive combined attack from its Tu-95MS fighters, with cruise projectiles, ballistic missiles and guided bombs. That attack was launched early in the day, which was unusual, and it came after days of drones and missiles, which had strained Ukraine’s anti-aircraft system. Monday’s combined attack hit from almost all sides.

“The Ukrainian Air Force,” notes Zhmailo, “stated that the main difficulty was that Russian missiles flew at extremely low altitudes, sometimes at a height of 50 meters, which greatly complicates the timely detection and destruction of such targets. Additionally, this type of missile has been enhanced with additional protection, including radars and thermal traps.” The USCC analyst also notes that defense is not typically focused on protecting a hospital, as this is not a likely military target.

On Tuesday, during the opening of the NATO summit in Washington, Biden announced that the five new defensive systems were to be sent so that they could be “immediately” incorporated to protect Ukraine. But how quickly the systems can be incorporated generally depends on prior training of the Ukrainian personnel who will use them. Their arrival, however, will help to prevent massacres like Monday’s, as well as strengthening the civilian population’s sense of protection. But it is a temporary measure, since they are finite resources that are up against Russia’s increased production of ammunition production: last year, units of the KH101 increased eightfold.

Sign up for our weekly newsletter to get more English-language news coverage from EL PAÍS USA Edition