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U.S. Sending Ukraine the “FrankenSAM” for Air Defense
One of the more shocking things about Russia’s still ongoing invasion of Ukraine is Russia’s enthusiasm for targeting civilian infrastructure with precision munitions.
There are several reasons for this: the Ukrainian military doesn’t present a very easy target for Russia to track, the Kremlin’s own kill chain is broken at multiple stages in the process, and the Russian military has no regard for civilian casualties.
Moscow may even believe that continued strikes against civilian targets, like apartment buildings, will eventually turn the population of Ukraine against Kyiv.
Yeah, good luck with that.
One thing that Ukraine always needs more of is air defense assets. Defending against those missile barrages has been one of Ukraine’s major challenges.
Unfortunately, U.S. Congress is gridlocked and unable to send any more aid to Ukraine until Congress overcomes its immature, dysfunctional shenanigans.
Ukraine still has several MIM-104 Patriot batteries — and yes, that legendary system successfully engaged the Kinzhal (RS-AS-24 Killjoy) aero-ballistic missile earlier this year — but only through a high expenditure of interceptors. They had to use a ton of Patriot missiles to down that one missile threat.
