Ukraine’s multiple air defence systems: US Patriot, French Crotale, German IRIS-T, Norwegian NASAMS
- Air defence has become of crucial importance for Ukraine as Russia targets its civilian infrastructure
- Allies have provided Kyiv with a variety of missile defence systems, creating logistical difficulties
Ukraine is having to master a patchwork of different air defence systems, with the latest addition – the American-made Patriot – bringing new capabilities but also complexity, analysts say.
Kyiv has taken delivery of the German IRIS-T, the French Crotale, the Norwegian NASAMS, as well the Italian Aspide 2000, the US-made HAWK and soon the Patriot.
“From a strictly military point of view, having a wide variety of systems is not easy … There are major logistical difficulties in putting in place multiple systems,” said Camille Grand, researcher for the ECFR think tank and former deputy secretary general at Nato.
Posing the same challenges as Western-delivered artillery and armoured vehicles that have flooded into Ukraine since February, each system requires different training and maintenance, forcing Ukrainian forces to learn quickly and adapt.
Ukraine also has its own Soviet-era air defences based on the Buk-m1 or S-300 systems which are far less effective.
“We are not going to see perfect communication and interoperability between all these systems, because of their diversity, because of the complexity of implementing them, but we can imagine that the Ukrainian air defence command will manage to integrate them side-by-side,” Grand added.