Israel Finally Caves to Western Pressure to Arm Ukraine: Large Quantities of Patriot Air Defence Missiles Sent

The U.S. Armed Forces have begun large scale deliveries of surface to air missiles for the MIM-104 Patriot long range air defence system to Ukraine, after these high value munitions were taken from Israeli stockpiles. The interceptors were reported delivered in the final week of January, with the story first reported by the American news website Axios citing informed sources, and subsequently confirmed to CNN by an American defence official. This confirmation was provided days after reports emerged that Israel was facing Western pressure to deliver stockpiles of armaments captured from the Lebanese paramilitary group Hezbollah to Ukraine, which include Kornet anti-tank missiles and Strela-2 man-portable air defence systems among other assets. The Israel Defence Forces confirmed plans to mothball U.S.-supplied Patriot systems in May 2024, in the middle of high intensity engagements with adversaries with advanced missile capabilities, with this interpreted by a number of analysts as a significant indication of the Patriot’s performance shortcomings. The Patriot has been replaced by the more advanced David’s Sling system developed jointly by Israel and the United States.

The U.S. and its allies have faced serious shortages of Patriot systems, with the U.S. Army’s arsenal increasingly thinly stretched after both donations to Ukraine and a sudden increase in requirements for them from late 2023 due to escalated attacks on American military facilities in the Middle East. Patriot arsenals across the European continent have been seriously depleted by deliveries to Ukraine, while newly built systems, such as those ordered by Switzerland, have seen deliveries delayed as Ukraine had been prioritised to receive them. Ukraine’s arsenal has suffered rapid attrition du to Russian attacks, with Russian forces’ ability to neutralise the systems appearing to have improved significantly from 2024. Some of the clearest early footage of the destruction of Patriot systems was published on March 10, and showed a Russian Iskander-M ballistic missile system using targeting data from nearby drones to launch a precision strike on them. Analysts writing for Forbes observed at the time that as a result “the air over eastern Ukraine may have gotten a lot safer for the Russians,” allowing for strikes on Ukrainian forces in the region with near impunity. Further footage of successful Iskander strikes on Patriot systems has since been published on multiple occasions.

Retirement of Israel’s own Patriots followed widespread reports of the systems’ friendly fire issues during Israeli air and air defence operations, leading to the shooting down of significant numbers of friendly drones. U.S. Military sources have reported that 40 percent of aircraft shot down by Israeli forces in recent months have been friendly. This mirrored similar issues faced by the U.S. Army’s Patriot systems during the invasion of Iraq in 2003, during which Patriots shot down multiple friendly aircraft. The lack of other comparable long range air defence systems in the Western world, and the small scale on which Patriots are produced, has made the systems particularly heavily depended on by NATO members and their strategic partners. As the only country to retire the Patriot from service completely, Israel’s arsenal is thus highly coveted.

Israel’s decision to allow missiles from its Patriot systems to be delivered to Ukraine, following close to three years of resistance to Western pressure to supply armaments to the Eastern European state, reflects the country’s vulnerable position after over a year of continuous conflict with multiple state and non-state actors. While Israel previously sought to maintain positive ties with both Russia and China, despite pressure from the United States and European states to align against both, the country’s extreme dependance on American aid and support as a result of the war has limited its ability to continue to do so. Israel’s neutrality in the Russian-Ukrainian War, tech sector cooperation with China, and granting of major infrastructure contracts to Chinese firms, were previously among the leading sources of tensions between it and the United States.