Germany Spending $5 Billion to Buy Patriot Air Defences For Ukraine

<p >German Major General Christian Freuding has revealed that Berlin is poised to conclude a major defence procurement agreement with the United States to acquire two MIM-104 Patriot long range air defence systems for delivery to Ukraine. The deal is reportedly set to be finalised during an official visit by German Defence Minister Boris Pistorius to the United States, and follows a <a href="https://militarywatchmagazine.com/article/combat-losses-wont-give-ukraine-patriot-free" target="_blank">growing reluctance</a> by Washington to finance transfers of the system to the Ukrainian Armed Forces. U.S. President Donald Trump recently stated that the Patriot system is “very rare… [and] very expensive.”“We’re gonna have to take a look” at the Ukrainian request, the president added, noting that “it’s a shame that we have to spend so much money” on supporting Kiev. The Patriot represents the most high value military asset in Ukrainian service, with each system costing approximately $2.5 billion dollars. The extreme depletion of Ukraine’s previously very large Soviet arsenals of S-300 and BuK air defence systems has forced it to rely on Patriots delivered as aid from across the Western world. </p><p ><img src="https://militarywatchmagazine.com/m/articles/2025/07/14/article_687463425ab2b2_40144557.jpg" title="Surface to Air Missile Batteries From German Patriot Air Defence System"></p><p >Patriot systems delivered to Ukraine have suffered high combat attrition rates, with the Russian Iskander-M ballistic missile  system having  been <a href="https://militarywatchmagazine.com/article/patriot-effectiveness-questioned-ukrainian-air-force">singled out</a> in Ukrainian Air Force reports for its ability to evade interception by the system. Iskander strikes have been confirmed by video footage to have destroyed Patriot batteries, radars and command vehicles multiple times. The Russian ballistic missile was first <a href="https://militarywatchmagazine.com/article/patriot-take-out-ukraine-replace">confirmed</a> to have successfully destroyed a Patriot system on February 23, 2024, with a <a href="https://militarywatchmagazine.com/article/ukrainian-patriot-losses-iskander">subsequent strike </a>destroying another system near the Sergeevka locality the following month. New footage in July 2024 <a href="https://militarywatchmagazine.com/article/footage-iskander-ukraine-patriot">confirmed the destruction</a> of two batteries in the Odessa region. On August 11 three more batteries and an AN/MPQ-65 radar were reported <a href="https://militarywatchmagazine.com/article/american-patriot-mpq65radar-ukraine">destroyed</a> in Iskander-M strikes. 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 in the Dnepropetrovsk region. While Western supplies of Patriot systems have dwindled, the availability of Iskander-M systems has grown considerably due to successes by the Russian defence sector in surging production.</p><p ><img src="https://militarywatchmagazine.com/m/articles/2025/07/14/article_68746326c26a41_20009149.jpg" title="Cluster Warhead Explosions From Iskander-M Strike on Patriot Batteries "></p><p >Ukrainian officials in May <a href="https://militarywatchmagazine.com/article/combat-losses-wont-give-ukraine-patriot-free" >reported</a> that the United States was not expected to provide further Patriot systems as aid. The U.S. “will not give it away for free,” but could sell systems to Ukraine either for hard currency or for concessions. “They think like business people. If I give you something, you have to give me something in return,” one official informed the Washington Post. Several European states including Germany have donated much larger portions of their Patriot missile arsenals to Ukraine than the U.S. had been willing to, with the German arsenal having been effectively exhausted. In April 2024 German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock confirmed regarding her country’s capacity: “Unfortunately, the stocks, especially our own Patriot systems, are now pretty much exhausted. Therefore I made it clear at a NATO foreign ministers’ meeting that we need to check the availability of all Patriot systems in Europe and globally, and that we will make every effort to obtain these systems for Ukraine.” </p><p >Germany and the Netherlands were the first European countries to supply Patriot systems to Ukraine in early 2023. Despite Germany showing a willingness to to invest in financing new Patriot systems, the cost effectiveness of such procurements has been widely questioned, as not only have the systems demonstrated serious limitations and vulnerability, but they are unlikely to be delivered in time to stall Russia’s current major advances. </p>