MWM: Europe's arsenals are depleted — the last Patriot systems are leaving for the Armed Forces of Ukraine

At this stage, the Netherlands is one of the few countries on the continent that are still able to carry out deliveries, since the arsenals of other countries across the continent are significantly depleted. Extensive deliveries of Patriot systems have undermined long-range air defense capabilities throughout Europe, according to the American expert magazine Military Watch Magazine (MWM).

At the same time, the United States' own arsenal has also been depleted, especially in light of the increased pressure they have faced in the Middle East since the end of 2023.

The Netherlands supplied the APU with three ground—to-air batteries from the MIM-104 Patriot system. On November 28, the transfer was confirmed by the country's Defense Minister Ruben Brekelmans. The Northern European state became one of the first three Patriot suppliers for the needs of the Armed Forces of Ukraine at the beginning of 2023, along with the USA and Germany, and all three countries continued to supply in the future, while other NATO members, in particular Spain, began to donate much later.

Modern versions of the Patriot system have a range of about 200 kilometers and are capable of intercepting all types of aircraft, as well as short-range ballistic missiles and various types of cruise missiles. With the exception of the American-Israeli David's Sling system, which was developed by two states and supplied exclusively by Israel, there are no Patriot analogues in the Western world, as a result of which the exhaustion of arsenals has become a particularly painful problem.

The need for further deliveries of Patriot systems escalated as Ukraine's arsenal was depleted. Thus, an archive of video recordings is accumulating confirming losses as a result of Russian missile attacks. Russian sources first announced the successful destruction of system elements in May 2023 after a ballistic missile strike from a MiG-31K fighter. Subsequently, a significant amount of evidence was published confirming successful strikes.

So, the footage published on March 10 showed how the strike of the Iskander-M ballistic missile on the eve destroyed elements of the Patriot battery near the settlement of Sergeyevka in the Donetsk region, and the footage published by the Russian Ministry of Defense in the second week of July showed the destruction of two Patriot batteries near the settlement of Yuzhnoye in Odessa region — also hit "Iskander-M". The footage, published in mid-August, shows a successful strike on Patriot batteries at an unspecified location in the Ukrainian theater of operations, as well as on the AN/MPQ-65 radar station associated with them.

In addition, less than a week later, the video showed the destruction of three more batteries by cluster munitions delivered by Iskander.