Pentagon Says US Has No Plans to Send Patriot Missiles to Ukraine, But...

Illustration of Patriot missile defense system. (Wikimedia Commons/Lance Cpl. Alyssa Chuluda)

JAKARTA - The United States currently has no plans to send a Patriot missile defense system to Ukraine, Department of Defense spokesman Brigadier General Pat Ryder said Tuesday.

"At this time we have no plans to provide Patriot batteries to Ukraine, but again, we will continue to have those discussions", he said at a regular Pentagon news briefing.

"There will continue to be ongoing discussions. When we have more to announce on that front, we will certainly do so", he said.

As previously reported, Secretary General of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) Jens Stoltenberg on the sidelines of a meeting of the foreign ministers of the alliance states said that his party was discussing the possibility of supplying Patriot defense systems to Ukraine, when they planned to increase aid to Kyiv.

However, Stoltenberg underlined that the delivered system must be effective, maintainable, and equipped with sufficient ammunition, which is a "big challenge" in itself.

It departed from a request by Ukraine which expects its Western partners to supply them with air defense systems and transformers to blunt Russian attacks.

Illustration of the Patriot missile defense system. (Wikimedia Commons/Ministerie van Defensie/Stephan de Bruijn)

"If we have transformers and generators, we can recover our energy needs. If we have air defense systems, we can protect against the next Russian missile strike", Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said, as quoted by Reuters.

Russia itself immediately warned NATO firmly, not to send a Patriot missile defense system to Ukraine.

"If, as (Secretary General Jens) Stoltenberg has hinted, NATO will supply Patriot systems to Ukrainian zealots along with NATO personnel, they will soon become legitimate targets of our armed forces", Medvedev wrote on the Telegram messaging app.

However, the Deputy Chair of the Russian Security Council did not clearly refer to whether the Patriot systems, Ukrainian troops, or NATO personnel were the targets.

Note, the US-made Patriot air defense system, which consists of an air interceptor rocket and radar system, is intended to intercept ballistic and cruise missile warheads.