Netherlands Replenishes Ukraine’s Patriot Missile Batteries After Heavy Losses: Europe’s Arsenals Almost Totally Expended

The Netherlands has delivered three surface to air missile batteries from the MIM-104 Patriot system to the Ukrainian Armed Forces, with Dutch Defense Minister Ruben Brekelmans having confirmed the transfer on November 28. The Northern European state was one of the first three to deliver Patriot systems in early 2023 alongside the United States and Germany, with all three having sustained deliveries, while other NATO member states, such as Spain, began to make donations later on. The Netherlands is one of the few states that is still able to make deliveries, with other arsenals across the continent having been excessively depleted.

The donations of Patriot systems on a very large scale have undermined the long range air defence capabilities of states across Europe, and left the United States’ own arsenal thinly stretched, particularly in light of the increased pressure it faced in the Middle East from late 2023. Modern variants of the Patriot system have engagement ranges of approximately 200 kilometres, and are capable of intercepting all kinds of aircraft, as well as short ranged ballistic missiles and multiple types of cruise missile. Other than the U.S.-Israeli David’s Sling system, which was developed by the two states and is fielded by Israel exclusively, no comparable systems to the Patriot exist in the Western world, which makes the depletion of the arsenal a particularly critical issue.  

The need to deliver more Patriot systems has continued to grow as Ukraine’s arsenal has been depleted, and as footage has continued to emerge confirming losses of the systems to Russian missile attacks. Russian sources first claimed the successful destruction of components of the system in May 2023 during a ballistic missile strike by MiG-31K fighters, although many of the more recent attacks have seen considerably more evidence released proving their success. Footage published on March 10 showed an Iskander-M ballistic missile strike the previous day destroying parts of a Patriot system near the Sergeevka locality in the disputed Donetsk region, while footage released by the Russian Defence Ministry in the second week of July showed the destruction of two Patriot batteries near the settlement Yuzhnoye in the Odessa region, which was also achieved using the Iskander-M. Footage released in mid-August showed a successful strike on Patriot batteries at an unknown location in the Ukrainian theatre, as well as an associated AN/MPQ-65 radar station. Less than a week later additional footage showed an Iskander-M missile deploy cluster munitions to destroy three more batteries.