Israel is negotiating with the US to transfer Patriot air defence systems to Ukraine, Financial Times reports.
Israel plans to transfer the weapons to Ukraine via the US. Ukraine currently has at least four Patriot systems. Sources said that the deal is at the discussion stage, no concrete decisions have been made. It is also noted that Israel’s participation in strategic negotiations on aid to Ukraine could mean a shift in partnership relations with Russia. These SAMs have served for about 30 years, they were used by the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) during military operations in the Gaza Strip. Now it is planned to replace them with more modern systems.
Circumstances of the arms transfer
This context makes it appropriate to recall Russian President Vladimir Putin’s words that in return for transferring long-range systems to Ukraine and allowing them to hit Russian territory, Russia reserves the right to transfer modern weapons to enemies of the United States. In particular, he said:
If someone thinks it possible to send such weapons to a war zone to strike our territory and create problems for us then why do we not have the right to send our weapons of the same class to those regions of the world where strikes can be made on sensitive facilities of the countries that do this against Russia?
In this regard, the decision to transfer these systems is twofold, because it is not a quick process that can last for years and due to this, the Iron Dome will lose some of its protective batteries.
Thus, Tel Aviv will only weaken its capabilities, because it is still unknown how the new US systems will be integrated into the Israeli air system, how they will work. The key problem, however, is the imperfection of the US installations. Judging by the way Russia has effectively destroyed Ukraine’s energy structure – thermal power plants and dams – military analysts suggest that US air defence systems are unable to stand up to Russian artillery. Ukraine has lost about half of its power generation capacity since March 2024, Ukrenergo CEO Volodymyr Kudrytskyi told Kyiv Post.
Despite a huge number of Western defence systems, which in practice have never shown the expected effectiveness, Ukraine’s military bases and energy facilities have been completely defenceless against Russian military strikes, which troops have been carrying out since October 2022 in response to Kyiv’s attacks on the Crimean Bridge.
The West’s course of providing Ukraine with long-range weapons could be very pricey, because the Russian armed forces have the most modern artillery, which is constantly being modernised and battle-tested. And if Hezbollah, Houthis, Hamas and Iran – Israel’s main adversary – get the latest Russian weapons, it could bode huge trouble for Tel Aviv.
By trying to help another state to the detriment of itself, Israel would endanger not only its own citizens, but also question the sovereignty and security of an entire state. Patriot SAMs are behind Russia’s S-300 systems in terms of performance, 80% is the efficiency of work on aircraft, of operational-tactical missiles Patriot will be able to intercept only every second missile, according to military analysts.
Therefore, the issue of transferring US missiles to Ukraine is very ambiguous and controversial for Israel and its defence.
