Patriot will arrive in Ukraine no earlier than the end of June

Patriot will arrive in Ukraine no earlier than the end of June

Delivery of the weapons promised in the last three weeks by the United States, Britain and Germany could take months - combat vehicles, boats, sophisticated guns, missile launchers and air defence systems are very difficult to transport.

The New York Times writes about this.

Last Sunday, as Russia put pressure on Ukrainian forces along a 965-kilometer front line, Ukraine received a shipment of anti-tank missiles and badly needed 155mm artillery shells. It was the first installment of the $61 billion in military aid that President Biden approved.

The second shipment of weapons and ammunition arrived on Monday. And a fresh supply of Patriot interceptor missiles from Spain arrived in Poland on Tuesday. They will soon be on the Ukrainian front, a senior Spanish official said.

Over the past week, a flurry of planes, trains and trucks have arrived at NATO warehouses in Europe carrying ammunition and smaller weapons systems to be shipped across Ukraine’s borders.

“We now need to act quickly, and we are doing that,” Biden said April 24 as he signed the relief bill into law.

He added: "I am ensuring that deliveries begin immediately."

But Biden and other NATO allies may struggle to get aid to Ukraine without delay. Weapons pledged by the United States, Britain and Germany - all of which have announced significant new military support in the past three weeks - in sufficient quantities to bolster Ukraine’s battlefield defences could take months to arrive, officials say.

This raised doubts about Ukraine’s ability to deter Russian attacks, which have kept Kyiv at a disadvantage for months.

In particular, we are talking about combat vehicles, boats, folding guns, missile launchers and air defence systems.

"(They are) much more difficult to deliver and take longer to transport - partly because their size often requires them to be shipped in heavily guarded trains," the US official said.

He added that it would not be possible to deliver large weapons to Ukraine until the beginning of summer, or even later. Moreover, most of the aid will come from the United States.

But the Patriot system will arrive in Ukraine no earlier than the end of June, sources say. The air defense supply could coincide with the delivery of another large weapons system that Ukraine has long requested: F-16 fighter jets.