What is the New U.S., German and Swiss Plan to Get Patriot Air Defences to Ukraine ’As Quickly As Possible’?

The German government has confirmed plans to deliver MIM-104 Patriot long range air defence systems to Ukraine “as quickly as possible,” after a plan was reportedly agreed on with the United States. German Defence Minister Boris Pistorius has confirmed that Berlin stated that five Patriot systems from Germany’s own already seriously depleted inventory would be dispatched. “We will coordinate closely in the coming days to determine how best to achieve this,” he stated after a meeting of the Ukraine Defence Contact Group. The minister further noted that Germany would supply surface-to-air missiles, and would finance the production of long range drones in Ukraine. Pistorius also confirmed longstanding speculation that planned Patriot supplies to Switzerland had been delayed, and that the systems previously intended for the Swiss Air Force would be diverted to the German Armed Forces, with deliveries occurring in 2027-2028 to replace units supplied to Ukraine. The Swiss government is reported to have assented to this.

The Defence Minister Pistorius’s statement contrasts to his prior assertion that the German Armed Forces lacked sufficient supplies of Patriot systems to send further systems to Ukraine. He claimed that Only six batteries were still available, after three had been donated to Ukraine, two were forward deployed in Poland, and another was being used for NATO operations and training. In April 2024 German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock similarly noted regarding her country’s capacity: “Unfortunately, the stocks, especially our own Patriot systems, are now pretty much exhausted. Therefore I made it clear at a NATO foreign ministers’ meeting that we need to check the availability of all Patriot systems in Europe and globally, and that we will make every effort to obtain these systems for Ukraine.” In the second week of July, 2025, German Major General Christian Freuding revealed that Berlin was poised to conclude a major defence procurement agreement to acquire two Patriot systems for Ukraine, although at the time it was not anticipated that the country would be willing to further reduce its already very limited stockpiles to achieve this.

Costing an estimated $2.5 billion each, the financing of supplies of Patriot systems to Ukraine has been particularly burdensome for the Eastern European state’s supporters in the Western world, especially as the systems have taken significant losses in combat at rates far exceeding NATO members’ ability to replace them. Such losses have been confirmed by drone footage on multiple occasions from March 2024. Most recently Russian strikes in the late hours of July 21 successfully targeted one of Ukraine’s few remaining Patriot systems, destroying three surface-to-air missile launchers and an associated AN/MPQ-65 radar.

A further major issue raising controversy with donations of Patriot systems are the growing questions being raised regarding its effectiveness. Ukrainian and Western sources have recently warned that the system has proven increasingly ineffective against Russian ballistic missile attacks, as these missiles have demonstrated improving levels of manoeuvrability which have made them highly challenging to detect. Such reports are far from unprecedented, with Ukrainian Air Force spokesman Igor Ignat having highlighted on May 26 the system’s shortcomings intercepting attacks by the Russian Iskander-M ballistic missile system, observing: “The Iskander missiles perform evasive manoeuvres in the final phase, thwarting the Patriot’s trajectory calculations… In addition, the Iskander can drop decoys capable of fooling Patriot missiles.”