![\"ISRAEL-DEFENCE-DRILLS\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/1749995833_293_960x0.jpg\")
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A Patriot missile launcher is pictured during the “Blue Flag” multinational air defense exercise at … More the Ovda air force base, north of the Israeli city of Eilat, on November 8, 2017. (JACK GUEZ\/AFP via Getty Images)<\/p>\n
AFP via Getty Images<\/p>\n
MIM-104 Patriot missile air defense missiles previously in Israel\u2019s inventory may have reached Ukraine. Kyiv doubtlessly welcomes with open arms any help it can get bolstering its beleaguered air defenses, especially as it faces its heaviest missile and drone bombardments of the war. In Israel\u2019s case, its history with the Patriots suggests it\u2019s probably more than happy to dispense with them.<\/p>\n
In an interview published on June 8, Israel\u2019s ambassador to Ukraine, Michael Brodsky, said that ex-Israeli Patriot systems are now in Ukrainian service.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese are Israeli Patriots that were in service in the early 1990s. We agreed to transfer them to Ukraine,\u201d Brodsky said<\/a>. \u201cUnfortunately, not much was said about this\u2026 when people claim that Israel didn\u2019t provide military aid, that\u2019s simply not true.\u201d<\/p>\n The Israeli Foreign Ministry swiftly denied Brodsky\u2019s comment, stating<\/a>, \u201cIt is not correct. Israel did not transfer Patriot systems to Ukraine.\u201d<\/p>\n From the moment Israel decided to retire<\/a> its Patriots in 2024, it was clear that Ukraine hoped it would receive at least some of them. By then, Kyiv had received some Patriot systems and already succeeded in shooting down some of Russia\u2019s most advanced missiles and aircraft.<\/p>\n The Israeli denial was noteworthy in light of a year\u2019s worth of reports indicating the contrary. The Wall Street Journal reported<\/a> in June 2024 that the U.S. and Israel were nearing an agreement to transfer up to eight Patriot systems from Israel\u2019s inventory to Ukraine, a move it correctly noted would \u201cdramatically increase\u201d Ukrainian air defenses.<\/p>\n Axios reported in January<\/a> that the U.S. military had transferred approximately 90 Patriot interceptor missiles from Israel to Poland en route to Ukraine. Furthermore, the New York Times reported in May<\/a> that an Israel-based Patriot system would be sent to Ukraine following refurbishment.<\/p>\n Israel may not want to acknowledge a transfer. The wording of the denial specifies it did not send systems but doesn\u2019t mention the interceptor missiles, which Ukraine could fire from its existing Patriot batteries. Consequently, Israel could truthfully say that it gave Ukraine the bullets but not the gun.<\/p>\n According to that Axios report, Israel reassured Russia it was \u201conly returning\u201d a Patriot system to the U.S., not transferring it to Ukraine. A spokesperson for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said an Israeli Patriot was returned to the U.S. but also clarified that \u201cit is not known to us whether it was delivered to Ukraine.\u201d<\/p>\n Israel\u2019s official denial may indicate it doesn\u2019t want any credit for helping beef up Ukrainian air defenses to avoid antagonizing Russia, which recently wanted to stay in Syria to counterbalance Turkey. When Russia\u2019s ally Bashar al-Assad was still in power, the Russian military was in a much more powerful strategic position in Syria than today. During those years, Israel invariably said it did not want to risk antagonizing Moscow, with which it had a deconfliction mechanism in Syria permitting it to bomb Iran-linked targets throughout the country, by supplying Ukraine with lethal weapons. It even refused an American request for vintage Hawk missiles it had retired long ago.<\/p>\n Now, Israel may be happy to dispense with its Patriots without acknowledgment. Israel noticeably did not use any Patriots during Iran\u2019s April and October 2024 missile attacks and the more recent Iranian bombardments that began on June 13, after Israel\u2019s Operation Rising Lion against Iran.<\/p>\n That\u2019s not surprising, considering Israel\u2019s Arrow and David\u2019s Sling systems are more suitable for intercepting ballistic missiles compared to its older Patriot PAC-2s. Furthermore, Israel\u2019s experience during its first major missile attack\u2014during the Persian Gulf War all the way back in 1991\u2014fostered a long-running distaste for the system.<\/p>\n America rushed Patriot systems to Israel ahead of that war to help defend against Saddam Hussein\u2019s Scud missiles. Washington feared an Israeli retaliation would splinter the coalition, which included many Arab states it had carefully united around the goal of ejecting Iraq from Kuwait. While over 40 Scud missiles hit Tel Aviv and Haifa during the war, an agitated Israel sat tight. Adding insult to injury was the inability of the Patriot interceptors to counter the overwhelming majority of the Scuds, despite widespread reports of its efficiency at the time.<\/p>\n The Israeli Air Force concluded after the war<\/a> that there was \u201cno evidence of a single successful intercept\u201d with \u201ccircumstantial evidence for one possible intercept\u201d at best. Defense Minister Moshe Arens recalled after the war that the number of Scuds intercepted was \u201cminuscule and is in fact meaningless.\u201d<\/p>\n With some conspicuous exceptions, the Israeli Patriots spent the intervening decades, in the words of one Israeli news outlet, \u201cmostly gathering dust\u201d<\/a> and never scoring any intercepts until it shot down a Hamas drone during the 2014 Gaza war.<\/p>\n Israeli Patriots saw rare combat in the summer of 2014, just under a quarter century after entering service, when they shot down Hamas drones from Gaza and a Su-24 bomber over the Golan Heights. However, by then, Israel had the Iron Dome in service, and its David\u2019s Sling was just three years away from becoming operational. The older Patriots\u2019 days in Israeli service were numbered.<\/p>\n But its combat-proven efficiencies against drones and Russian-built aircraft in 2014 show, in retrospect, how suited it is for Ukraine at the moment. Since Kyiv launched its daring Spider\u2019s Web operation against Russia\u2019s strategic bombers on June 1, it has faced no fewer than 1,451 drones<\/a> from Russia against its cities. Kyiv needs all the help it can get. And even some extra PAC-2s for its existing systems from Israel would go a long way in keeping its critical air defenses online.<\/p>\n Given Ukraine\u2019s present need and Israel\u2019s historical dislike of them, one could hardly find a more clear-cut example of the saying one man\u2019s trash is another man\u2019s treasure.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Patriot missile launcher is pictured during the “Blue Flag” multinational air defense exercise at … More the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":186492,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7654],"tags":[2000,299,76441,76440,76443,76444,657,76442],"class_list":{"0":"post-186491","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ukraine","8":"tag-eu","9":"tag-europe","10":"tag-israeli-air-defense","11":"tag-mim-104-patriot","12":"tag-patriot-pac-2","13":"tag-persian-gulf-war","14":"tag-ukraine","15":"tag-ukrainian-air-defense"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114687734239079743","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/186491","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=186491"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/186491\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/186492"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=186491"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=186491"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=186491"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}