Ukraine has officially invited the European Union countries to participate in the development of a long -range air defense system, capable of hiring targets over 100 km away, a project classified as an air defense system at the strategic level, reports Defense Express.
Ukraine is working on developing a similar Patriot Aerial Defense Patriot Profimedia
The announcement was made by the Deputy Foreign Minister of Ukraine Andrii Sibiha at a meeting of the EU Foreign Affairs Council on Tuesday, April 14th.
Sibiha asked the Allies to strengthen the Ukrainian anti -aircraft defense and provide additional systems, as well as rockets and pieces, Kyiv Independent said. He also invited the EU partners to invest in the development of a Ukrainian air defense system, arguing that this will allow the country in the war to accelerate its implementation.
“(Russian President Vladimir) Putin will move closer to Europe and close to your homes if it is not stopped in Ukraine. This is reality.
And we do not want your countries to ever see ballistic missiles with fragmentation hitting residential neighborhoods or playgrounds. That is why we must act now to achieve peace, strengthen Ukraine and increase pressure on Moscow ”the minister said.
The term “aerial strategic defense” is used by the big defense contractors such as Raytheon to describe systems such as SM-6 (radius up to 370 km) or SM-3, which is designed for intercepting extra-mathephic missiles, writes Defense Express,
Theoretically, this suggests that Ukraine could work on a stronger soil-air missile system, especially if it aims to achieve a capacity similar to SM-6. While the Patriot missile system is sometimes classified as a strategic system, such an ambitious project would be over systems such as SAMP/T (Franco-Italian), especially in terms of range.
Recently, the Ukrainian minister for strategic industries, Herman Smetanin, confirmed that internal defense companies work actively on an Ukrainian equivalent of the Patriot system.
Although not many details are known about the current stage of the new project, the concept has been discussing for several years. Since 2022, the development of such a system could have been prioritized, which means that the system could enter the service – as it happened in the case of the Neptune Rocket.
Ukraine's invitation to EU states is also a strategic movement in industrial cooperation. However, many countries already invest in their own projects.
• France and Italy are employed in the completion of the SAMP/T NG system, the missile production being managed by MBDA – owned by Airbus, Bae Systems and Leonardo.
• Germany has already ordered the ARROW 3 of Israeli manufacturing system and extends the German-Israeli common defense programs, including in efforts to revive a similar APKWS missile.
• Poland has hired over $ 15 billion for Patriot systems.
On the other hand, there is a real potential to co -operate other European countries, which have both financing and their own technological capabilities.
These include Saab from Sweden, which produces advanced radar systems such as Giraffe 4A, but currently has only the Manpads RBS-70 air defense system. Sweden has purchased a limited number of Patriot missiles, against $ 1.3 billion, but Saab could be interested in a larger European Strategic Defense Project.
Another possibility is Kongsberg in Norway, which currently cooperates with Ukraine to integrate Ukrainian missiles into the Nasams system. For Kongsberg, participating in the development of a long or strategic radius system would be a significant improvement on its current short and medium -range capabilities – especially since Norway has no own means of long -range air defense.
