Ukraine Won’t Be Using Patriot Missiles Anytime Soon After Omnibus’ Passing

The recently-approved Patriot air missile defense system from the United States is heading to Ukraine, but the timeline for its delivery and implementation remains vague.

The missile defense system is the standout piece of an additional $1.85 billion in security assistance announced by the Department of Defense on Wednesday simultaneously as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky visited Washington D.C. to address Congress.

More aid for the Eastern European country also comes as a $1.7 trillion spending bill “hangs by a thread,” according to Senator Chris Coons, a Delaware Democrat. Meanwhile, all Democrats, 18 Republicans and two independent members of the Senate voted for the omnibus bill to prevent a government shutdown on Friday.

If approved, the bill will extend government funding through September 30, 2023. It had been delayed for weeks as lawmakers argued over its proposals, which included funding around immigration, emergency disaster assistance and military aid to Ukraine.

A combination image shows Patriot missiles and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky speaking during a press conference on July 4 in Kyiv, Ukraine. The recently-approved Patriot air missile defense system from the United States is heading to Ukraine, but the timeline for its delivery and implementation remains vague. Getty/dvids

Retired U.S. General Mark Hertling, who initially expressed caution about the timeline for Patriot delivery and use by Ukrainian forces, reiterated his concerns to CNN on Wednesday regarding the “months” of training required to operate the complex system.

He also clarified that the missile defense system is not something that will defend the entire Ukrainian nation.

“These systems don’t pick up and move around the battlefield,” Hertling said. “You put them in place somewhere that defends your most strategic target, like a city, like Kyiv. If anyone thinks this is going to be a system that is spread across a 500-mile border between Ukraine and Russia, they just don’t know how the system operates.”

When asked about the timeline of delivery and implementation in Ukraine, Garron Garn, spokesperson for the Pentagon, referred Newsweek to a briefing conducted Wednesday by unnamed senior defense and military officials.

Without offering specifics, the defense official told reporters that “the training will begin very soon,” but that “it is a several-month training process.” The official declined to comment when asked how many Ukrainians would be trained, and where.

Jordan Cohen, policy analyst at the Cato Institute, told Newsweek on Friday that training for maintenance and repair can traditionally take up to a full calendar year.

Cohen said the U.S. does not have “a ton of PAC 2 and PAC 3s (missiles) just lying around” that can be sent to Ukraine, adding, “Once the battery and missiles are sent, the U.S. will not get them back.”

“For understandable reasons, Ukraine’s use of ammunition is outpacing supply, at least for some systems,” Cohen said. “With the Patriot, given the lack of freely available missiles, they cannot be wasted….I think that the delivery and training of this system will take many months and, because of the limited supply as well as the cost, I am not sure that it will be used—or, at the very least, used successfully—before late spring 2023 at the absolute earliest.”

While Russian President Vladimir Putin dismissed the Patriot system as “quite old” amid Zelensky’s impromptu trip, the delivery of the system by the U.S. has resulted in threats from Russian officials.

Anatoly Antonov, Russian ambassador to the U.S., questioned the Americans’ role in the system’s delivery and how training by the U.S. or another NATO country sends a particular message.

“They cannot but realize here that Western weapons are being systematically destroyed by our military,” Antonov said. “I think everyone understands perfectly well what fate the personnel, manning these complexes on the territory of Ukraine, can face.”