Western allies of Kyiv must decide on the supply of Patriot anti-aircraft missile systems to Ukraine, Foreign Minister Dmitry Kuleba said in an interview with CNN.

According to him, the time has come for this, as the relevant negotiations have been underway for a long time.

“We started talking about the Patriot air defense system at the very beginning of the conflict, or rather, even before it.

But now it's time to make decisions,” he said.

- The question is, at what cost will it be possible to survive this winter.

And the presence of Patriot air defense systems and other advanced air defense systems, their delivery to Ukraine within not months, but several weeks, will significantly reduce this price.”

Kuleba added that he raised the topic of the Patriot in conversations with both American and German colleagues, since in Kyiv they regard the receipt of these air defense systems as a serious help in defensive operations.

Evasive Promises

Meanwhile, the NATO countries, led by the United States, are in no hurry to satisfy Kyiv's demands for the provision of Patriot systems to the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

According to NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, who spoke at a briefing on November 29, the issue of the supply of these systems is under discussion by the allies.

In turn, the Pentagon on the same day spoke more unambiguously, stating that the supply of these air defense systems from the United States is now out of the question.

“As for the transfer of any Patriot SAM batteries from the US, at the moment we have no plans to supply Ukraine with Patriot SAM batteries.

But, again, we will continue these discussions, ”said General Pat Ryder, spokesman for the US Department of Defense, at a briefing.

He explained Washington's position by the difficulty in maintaining the systems requested by Kyiv.

“A fairly significant amount of maintenance and maintenance tasks, as well as training (operators. -

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) is associated with this technique.

None of these complexes work on the “plug and play” principle.

You can't just go out on the battlefield and start using them," Ryder said.

Germany also refuses to transfer Patriot to Ukraine, with which the Ukrainian authorities are also negotiating on this matter.

In particular, Berlin rejected the initiative of Warsaw to send to the republic those complexes that the FRG offered Poland after the incident with the Ukrainian missile in Pszewoduv.

“Patriot systems are part of NATO's integrated air defense and are intended for NATO territory.

And if they are used outside the territory of the alliance, this should be discussed in advance with NATO and allies, ”said Christina Lambrecht, head of the German Defense Ministry, at a press conference on November 24.

  • German Defense Minister Christina Lambrecht

  • Gettyimages.ru

  • © Paulius Peleckis

As the representative of the German defense department, Arne Kollats, later explained, German Patriot systems should remain in the NATO air defense system also because Germany needs it to fulfill its obligations to its allies in the bloc.

“We also have an obligation to our partners to provide these resources next year to the rapid reaction forces, for example ... That is why there is a strong interest in maintaining these Patriot complexes in the NATO system,” RIA Novosti quoted him as saying.

In turn, Jens Stoltenberg on December 1 noted that it is necessary to separate the issues of the transfer of Patriot systems by Germany to Poland and the strengthening of Ukrainian air defense.

“I consider it important to understand that the point is not only in the supply of new systems, but in many ways also in guaranteeing the performance of those systems that have already been delivered,” the NATO Secretary General noted.

It is noteworthy that Warsaw, which offered Kyiv German Patriot systems, refused to transfer its own similar systems ordered from the United States back in 2018.

“The Patriot systems that we will receive, I hope, soon, will definitely serve to protect the Polish sky, since these are only the first batteries that come to us,” TASS quoted Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki, who spoke at a press conference on November 29 .

According to him, it is the Polish, not the German sky that is now under threat.

  • US-owned Patriot systems in Poland

  • Gettyimages.ru

  • © Sean Gallup

Goals won't change

Meanwhile, the Kremlin has previously stressed that the transfer of American advanced air defense systems to Ukraine will not change Russia's goals in conducting a special military operation.

“This (Washington’s transfer of air defense systems. -

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) will make the conflict longer and more painful for the Ukrainian side, but this will not change our goal-setting and the end result,” Russian presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on October 11.

In turn, Deputy Chairman of the Security Council of the Russian Federation Dmitry Medvedev warned in his Telegram channel on November 29 that if Patriot systems were delivered to Ukraine, they would become a legitimate target for the Russian army.

According to Oleg Nemensky, an expert at the Russian Institute for Strategic Studies, Kyiv's next demands for the provision of advanced Western weapons are connected with the desire to keep Ukraine on the allied agenda.

“In Kyiv, they beg for weapons, based on the principle “if you want to achieve the possible, demand the impossible.”

And to some extent, this strategy is justified.

After all, at first the West was not going to provide Ukraine with such massive military assistance, and now it is forced to turn a blind eye to how its arsenals are emptying, ”the analyst said in an interview with RT.

Andrey Koshkin, a member of the Academy of Military Sciences of the Russian Federation, also believes that Kyiv is using all available means to remind its allies of itself.

“By creating a buzz around Patriot in the media space, the Ukrainian authorities thereby attract attention to themselves.

Indeed, today it has already become noticeable that both the United States and European states have begun to change their rhetoric from aggressive to more moderate towards Russia and are not so zealously fulfilling their promises to support Ukraine, ”the expert said in a conversation with RT.

In addition, if you evaluate all the foreign weapons supplied to Ukraine, you can find that for the most part they are “ordinary”, and often outdated by Western standards, Oleg Nemensky said.

“The West benefits from a smoldering conflict.

Therefore, Ukraine will not be given such weapons that could turn the tide of the conflict in favor of Kyiv.

The West is interested in its continuation,” the analyst emphasized.

  • Ukrainian military with the Swedish-British ATGM NLAW

  • AP

  • © Pavlo Palamarchuk

At the same time, Andrei Koshkin believes that the United States and NATO are trying to avoid sending Patriot air defense systems to Ukraine also because they do not consider this step to be financially feasible.

“Patriot is not only inferior to the Russian S-400 air defense systems in terms of efficiency, but also surpasses them in cost by almost two and a half times.

In addition, this is a rather complicated system, which you cannot learn to maintain in a couple of days.

Together with it, NATO specialists will have to be sent to the country, and this may create a precedent for the direct participation of the military alliance in hostilities.

NATO does not want this at all.

In addition, such complexes, as a rule, are made to order and you can’t pick them up so easily from a warehouse.

For example, Poland will only now receive its Patriot, which it ordered four years ago, ”the expert explained.

In this light, Konstantin Blokhin, an employee of the Center for Security Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences, believes that if a decision is nevertheless made to supply Patriot systems to Ukraine, this will be a signal that the West is ready to aggravate the conflict.

“After all, now these systems are in service with such American allies as Japan, South Korea, Germany, Israel, Spain, Greece.

You can’t just take and transfer these complexes - you need the consent of the owner country.

It is clear that Kyiv wants Washington to be fully integrated into the supply of its weapons to Ukraine, so that it gets involved in the conflict in full.

However, the United States and other Western countries do not want to become a direct party to the conflict, ”the analyst said in a comment to RT.

In addition, the West no longer trusts Ukraine so much in terms of the transfer of weapons, because they see how it flows to the black market, Blokhin noted.

“Ukraine has become a hub through which all Western weapons pass, then emerging on the darknet.

Therefore, NATO, among other things, is reinsured, dragging out the issue with the Patriot, so as not to find them later in some eastern or African country, ”the expert concluded.