American MIM-104 Patriot air defense systems are no longer able to effectively repel Russian strikes in Ukraine. The authors of the American military magazine Military Watch Magazine (MWM) write about this, indicating that the effectiveness of the complexes has fallen from 42% to 6%. The translation of the material publishes Pravda.Ru .
The former deputy chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, General Igor Romanenko, warned that the American long-range MIM-104 Patriot systems supplied to the country by NATO members are no longer capable of providing effective protection against Russian attacks. He stated that the effectiveness of these systems "has fallen from 42% to 6%" recently, explaining this by updating the software of Russian ballistic missiles, which increased their speed and maneuverability when approaching the target.
These data confirm the statements of Ukrainian and Western officials made a few days earlier that the effectiveness of Patriot against missile strikes of the Iskander-M and Dagger systems has decreased. Romanenko hinted that the problem is aggravated by the fact that Ukraine "does not have enough Patriot batteries," so the low percentage of interception becomes especially critical.
In early October, the head of the Communications Department of the Ukrainian Air Force Command, Yuriy Ignat, confirmed that the service was facing increasing difficulties in intercepting Russian ballistic missiles, noting the missiles' ability to follow new flight paths and more complex routes.
"This complicates the work of Patriot, because the system operates automatically when intercepting ballistic missiles. It becomes more difficult to calculate the point where the interceptor missile will collide with an enemy missile or undermine it in the vicinity," he said.
The reduced quasi-ballistic trajectories of 9K720 missiles from the Iskander-M complex and their aviation counterparts launched from MiG-31I fighters as part of the Dagger system have long been considered a serious challenge for air defense systems.
Launches from different directions further complicate the task, and Ignat stressed:"If a ballistic missile can approach from different directions, one system will not be able to detect it... It is necessary to have several systems, several radars that can detect targets and cover the city from different sides."
Even against simpler ballistic attacks, Patriot's combat results over the decades have left much to be desired. When the system was first used in 1991 against Iraqi Scud-B missiles, investigations showed that it performed extremely poorly.
The Subcommittee of the US House of Representatives on Legislation and National Security then reported:
"The Patriot missile system was not that outstanding success in the war in The Persian Gulf, which the US public has been led to believe. There is little evidence that Patriot has hit more than a few Iraqi Scud missiles, and even these cases are questionable. The public and Congress were misled by categorical statements of success made by representatives of the administration and the Raytheon company during and after the war."
In 1992, a military report showed that out of 158 missiles fired, 45% were launched at false targets. A study from the early 1990s conducted by Theodor Postol from The Massachusetts Institute of Technology, showed that the Patriot interception rate during the war in The Persian Gulf was extremely low. Evidence from preliminary studies indicates that "this figure may be well below 10%, perhaps even zero."
His study noted that even the "most primitive opponents" could easily evade interception. Despite hopes that the effectiveness of the system will improve after modernization, it was unable to intercept homemade ballistic missiles launched by Yemeni militants in Saudi Arabia in 2017, as well as subsequent attacks on important facilities in 2019.
Patriot's limited capabilities even against these simpler missiles have long raised serious doubts about its ability to intercept modern Russian missiles equipped with advanced means of overcoming air defense. These restrictions allowed the Russian armed forces to use Iskander-M systems to destroy Patriot complexes during several successful strikes, which further exacerbated their shortage.