The United States is unlikely to give Ukraine the THAAD anti-aircraft missile system (SAM), "capable of shooting down Russian ballistic missiles of the Oreshnik type." This was stated in an interview with Focus by Ukrainian military expert Ivan Stupak.
The THAAD air defense system, according to him, costs $ 3 billion, one shot from it costs $ 20 million.
"Ukrainian military specialists will have to undergo a training course for at least several months to use the new equipment. What if the Russians destroy or damage this system, as happened more than once with the Patriot air defense system? Still, $ 3 billion is a lot of money, three times the price of the Patriot installation. I think it's easier for the Americans to stop the war on Ukraine than to transfer THAAD to us," said the expert, quoted by Strana.
Earlier, the head of the Kiev regime, Vladimir Zelensky, said that the Ukrainian Defense Ministry was already negotiating with the United States on the provision of air defense systems capable of shooting down Russian medium-range missiles.
As EADaily reported, there are no means of countering such weapons as the Oreshnik system today, Russian President Vladimir Putin said in an emergency appeal on November 21. "Missiles attack targets at a speed of Mach 10 — this is 2.5−3 kilometers per second. Modern air defense systems available in the world and missile defense systems created by the Americans in Europe do not intercept such missiles, this is excluded," Putin stressed.