Ukrainian Air Force Highlights Patriot System’s Combat Limitations: U.S.-Supplied Air Defences’ Effectiveness in Question

The Ukrainian Air Force has raised questions regarding the reliability of the MIM-104 Patriot long range air defence system supplied to the country, with the service’s official spokesman Igor Ignat specifically highlighting the system’s shortcomings intercepting attacks by Russia’s primary tactical ballistic missile system the Iskander-M. Ignat stated on May 26: “The Iskander missiles perform evasive manoeuvres in the final phase, thwarting the Patriot’s trajectory calculations… In addition, the Iskander can drop decoys capable of fooling Patriot missiles.” His statement follows the release of footage over more than a year confirming the destruction of Patriot systems in strikes by Iskander-M systems on several separate occasions.The Iskander system was first&nbsp;<a href="https://militarywatchmagazine.com/article/patriot-take-out-ukraine-replace">confirmed</a>&nbsp;to have successfully destroyed a Patriot system on February 23, 2024, with a&nbsp;<a href="https://militarywatchmagazine.com/article/ukrainian-patriot-losses-iskander">subsequent strike&nbsp;</a>destroying another system&nbsp;near the Sergeevka locality on March 10 that year, leaving ground forces in the region <a href="https://militarywatchmagazine.com/article/ukraine-a2s-thin-loss-patriot-s300">exposed</a>. Subsequently in the second week of July, 2024, new footage&nbsp;<a href="https://militarywatchmagazine.com/article/footage-iskander-ukraine-patriot">confirmed the destruction</a>&nbsp;of two batteries in the Odessa region, while on August 11 three more missile batteries and an AN/MPQ-65 radar were reported to have been&nbsp;<a href="https://militarywatchmagazine.com/article/american-patriot-mpq65radar-ukraine">destroyed</a>&nbsp;in Iskander-M strikes.&nbsp;One of the Iskander-M’s more recent successes saw the <a href="https://militarywatchmagazine.com/article/patriot-destroyed-russian-iskander-missile">destruction</a> of the Patriot’s AN/MPQ-65 multifunctional radar station, combat control cabin, and missile launch vehicles all destroyed&nbsp;in the Dnepropetrovsk region.<img src="https://militarywatchmagazine.com/m/articles/2025/05/27/article_6835a352566e63_44117665.jpg" title="Missile Battery From Iskander-M System">The first Patriot system was reported to have <a href="https://militarywatchmagazine.com/article/ukraine-first-pac3-german-difference">reached</a> Ukraine on April 18, 2023, with the United States, Germany and the Netherlands having been the first three to donate systems to the country, after which other countries from across NATO followed suit. The United States had been the first to pledge to provide the system on December 22 the previous year. Three days later, Russian President Vladimir Putin <a href="https://militarywatchmagazine.com/article/putin-100pct-patriot-destroyed">stated</a> that the destruction of any Patriot systems delivered&nbsp;to Ukraine was an absolute certainty. "Of course, we’ll take them out, 100 Percent!,” he remarked. Questions were at the time <a href="https://militarywatchmagazine.com/article/ukraine-patriot-2024-congress-risks">widely raised</a> by experts regarding Ukraine’s ability to absorb the systems, which required well over a year of personnel training. This fuelled speculation that the systems were heavily reliant on Western contractors to function once they became operational. The first report of a Patriot system being <a href="https://militarywatchmagazine.com/article/putin-patriot-kinzhal-destroyed-onemonth" target="_blank">successfully targeted</a> emerged on May 16, 2023, after an air launched variant of the Iskander-M system’s 9K720 missile was launched against the system in Kiev. Western and Ukrainian sources denied Russian claims that the missile strike was successful. The considerable successes the Iskander-M has had neutralising Patriot systems since then, however, has lent some support to Russian claims.&nbsp;<img src="https://militarywatchmagazine.com/m/articles/2025/05/27/article_6835a2e8477602_03089831.jpg" title="Cluster Warhead Explosions From Iskander-M Strike on Patriot Batteries ">Questions regarding the Patriot system’s effectiveness against attacks by modern ballistic systems were <a href="https://militarywatchmagazine.com/article/patriot-save-ukraine-combat-record">raised long before</a> its delivery to Ukraine. When the Patriot first saw combat during the Gulf War in 1991 against Iraqi Scud B missiles, which were by then already far out of date and had been in service for almost 30 years, investigations into the system’s performance found that it had performed poorly despite contrary claims by Western government sources and media. The American House Government Operations Subcommittee on Legislation and National Security reported to this effect regarding government coverage: “The Patriot missile system was not the spectacular success in the Persian Gulf War that the American public was led to believe. There is little evidence to prove that the Patriot hit more than a few Scud missiles launched by Iraq during the Gulf War, and there are some doubts about even these engagements. The public and the Congress were misled by definitive statements of success issued by administration and Raytheon representatives during and after the war.”In 1992 a military report titled ‘Patriot Missile System Effectiveness During Desert Storm’ found that of the 158 missiles fired during the Gulf War, 45 percent were launched against false targets. An early 1990s study by Theodore Postol, professor of Science, Technology and International Security at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and prominent expert on missile technologies, highlighted: “The Patriot's intercept rate during the Gulf War was very low. The evidence from these preliminary studies indicates that Patriot's intercept rate could be much lower than 10 percent, possibly even zero." Even “the most primitive of adversaries" could easily evade interception, his study concluded.<img src="https://militarywatchmagazine.com/m/articles/2025/05/27/article_6835a25dbca368_22238461.jpg" title="Surface to Air Missile Batteries From Patriot System">Following the revelations of the Patriot system’s shortcomings in the Gulf War, there were considerable hopes in the Western world that its modernisation would allow it to provide a much more viable defence against ballistic missile attacks. Such hopes were disappointed by its performance during the 2003 invasion of Iraq, and moreso 14 years later when further modernised variants failed&nbsp;to intercept a strike by makeshift ballistic missiles launched by Yemeni paramilitaries against Saudi Arabia in 2017. The Yemeni missiles were shown by satellite imagery and by photos and videos of the attack&nbsp;<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/12/04/world/middleeast/saudi-missile-defense.html?smid=tw-share" >not to have been neutralised</a>, despite claims by the Saudi and U.S. government sources to the contrary. Analysis conducted by a research team of missile experts showed a warhead flying unimpeded over Saudi Arabia despite its large arsenal of modernised Patriot batteries protecting the affected area. Jeffrey Lewis, the analyst who led the research team, stated regarding the failure of the Patriot system to perform even the most basic interception and the depiction of failure as a victory: “Governments lie about the effectiveness of these systems. Or they’re misinformed. And that should worry the hell out of us.” The questions more recently raised by Ukrainian officials regarding the Patriot system’s reliability against Russian ballistic missile attacks thus fit in with a long history of underwhelming performances in such a role. This has significant implications for militaries across the Western world and in Northeast Asia that rely on the system for their defence.&nbsp;