Ukraine Asked for 300 Patriot Missiles. Every New Interceptor on Offer Arrives After the Winter

Lockheed showed a Patriot successor due in 2031 on the day Poland said its own PAC-3 deliveries will slip. Ukraine's ballistic defense this winter rests on missiles allies already hold.

Ukraine will fight this winter's ballistic missiles with interceptors that already exist, because nothing announced this month can reach a launcher in time. On Oct. 12 Lockheed Martin put its PAC-3 Edge, a successor to the Patriot system's PAC-3 MSE interceptor, on the floor of the AUSA conference in Washington. Testing starts in 2027, and "the U.S. Army's timeline is 2031," said Jason Reynolds, who runs the company's air and missile defense business. The same day in Warsaw, Poland's operational commander, Gen. Ireneusz Nowak, told the Warsaw Security Forum that the PAC-3 MSE missiles Poland has already bought are "going to be delayed for sure."

Khmara's request: 300 missiles now

Kyiv has paid for the future and is short in the present. Defence Minister Yevhen Khmara told the Ukraine Defense Contact Group on Sept. 8 that Ukraine had signed contracts for roughly 1,000 Patriot missiles in recent months, and that most will not ship for years. He asked partners for 300 interceptors from their own stockpiles now and offered the newer missiles from those contracts as replacements. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has put the winter requirement at 300 to 360.

The replies so far, as Defense News tallied them: Germany promised an undisclosed number of older PAC-2 interceptors from Bundeswehr stocks. Britain committed £100 million through NATO's Prioritised Ukraine Requirements List for Patriot missiles and other air-defense equipment. Washington left Patriot missiles out of the nearly $400 million in expiring Ukraine aid money it obligated before the fiscal year closed, a source familiar with the package told Reuters.

Russia fired 70 missiles in one night last week. Ukraine's air force said it downed 39 of the 48 cruise missiles and five of the ballistic ones. "We need dozens and hundreds of missiles, not one-off deliveries," Khmara told journalists.