The US Department of Defense neither confirmed nor denied the report by the Axios portal that the US military had sent about 90 interceptor missiles for Patriot anti-aircraft missile systems from Israel to Poland for their further transfer to Ukraine.
“We have seen these reports, but now we have nothing to provide you“, an official representative of the department replied to TASS.
As the portal previously reported, citing its sources, “the US military this week transferred about 90 interceptor missiles for Patriot complexes from a warehouse in Israel to Poland for the purpose of delivering them to Ukraine“. The publication notes that “this is the most significant supply of weapons from Israel to Ukraine“ after the Russian offensive.
The portal explains that in April 2024, the Israeli army “officially decommissioned the Patriot air defense system“. This decision was made due to the fact that “Israel has developed its own air defense systems and most of the Patriots are used for training or remain in storage.”
According to the sources, after the Israeli military announced the decommissioning of the complexes, the Ukrainian side asked the US and Israel to transfer the interceptor missiles first to the US for maintenance, and then send them to Ukraine. For several months, Israel “was buying time, fearing retaliatory steps from Russia“, the material says. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu agreed to send the weapons in September 2024.
The publication claims that Israeli authorities warned Russia about this step and stressed that they were “only returning Patriot systems to the US“, and not transferring them to Ukraine. It is expected that "additional equipment", including radar, "will first be sent to the United States" for maintenance.