New footage released by the Russian Defence Ministry has confirmed successful strikes using Iskander-M ballistic missile systems to destroy two batteries from a Patriot surface to air missile systems - a scarce U.S.-built asset donated by Washington and many of its European allies.
“The Iskander-M operational and tactical missile complex struck the position of Ukraine’s battery of the Patriot anti-aircraft missile complex near the settlement Yuzhnoye in the Odessa region. The strike destroyed two Patriot launchers and a Giraffe radar station,” the Defence Ministry specified regarding the strikes.
Although Iskander systems are not specialised air defence suppression assets, footage has repeatedly shown their use with considerable effect to neutralise Ukraine’s top air defence systems the Patriot and S-300, with precision guidance capabilities allowing them to destroy road mobile assets by correcting course during flight.
Previously on March 9 footage showed Ukrainian Patriot systems operating near the Sergeevka locality in the disputed Donetsk region destroyed in Iskander-M strikes. Soviet built S-300 systems, which are significantly more mobile than Patriots, were also destroyed in the attack.
This left already much diminished air defences in the area further seriously stretched, with Ukrainian and Western sources raising growing concerns regarding the strategic implications. Ukraine has received its first Patriot systems from three countries in May 2023, with a first system supplied by Germany and the Netherlands jointly, and a second by the United States.
Western countries have since widely pledged to deliver further units, although the U.S. arsenal has been increasingly thinly stretched between Eastern Europe, the Pacific and the Middle East. Washington has sought to replenish Ukrainian Patriot supplies by placing pressure on its strategic partner Israel to donate the systems to the Eastern European country, with Tel Aviv’s heavy reliance on American aid and supplies increasingly limiting its options to resist. Israel acquired a significant Patriot arsenal in the 1990s, but has been highly reluctant to support Western efforts to arm Ukraine in order to avoid a deterioration in its ties with Moscow.
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