Russia has demanded clarification on the transfer of Israeli Patriot anti-aircraft systems to Ukraine. The Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs denies the fact of the delivery.
This was reported by the Israeli media outlet Ynet, citing the response of the Foreign Ministry of Israel.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs said that the statements of Israeli Ambassador to Ukraine Mikhail Brodsky, according to which Israel had transferred Patriot systems to Kyiv, were incorrect.
“Israel has not transferred such systems to Ukraine,” the statement said.
According to the newspaper, Russia demanded clarification from Israel on this report, which led to Israel’s denial.
Israel de jure may indeed not have transferred its anti-aircraft systems directly. At the beginning of the year, Axios reported that the country had sent decommissioned air defense systems to the United States and that the Israeli side allegedly did not know their fate.
The publication also wrote, citing a high-ranking Israeli official, that Israel had informed Russia in advance of this step and emphasized that it was “only returning the Patriot system to the United States” and that it was not an arms supply to Ukraine.
Israeli Patriot
In his interview, Ambassador Mikhail Brodsky explained that these are Patriot PAC-2 anti-aircraft systems that Israel received from the United States in the early 1990s.
The country’s air force began decommissioning Patriot systems at the end of April 2024, replacing them with more modern systems. Accordingly, at the time of decommissioning, a significant portion of the life of the old systems had been used up without further medium or major repairs.
It was expected that the Israeli systems could have been repaired and modernized in the United States at the manufacturer’s facilities, but this was not publicly reported.
The number of systems that could be transferred to the United States is also unknown. In the conversation, Brodsky spoke of systems in the plural.
According to the registry of the Stockholm Institute of Peace Research (SIPRI), which studies the arms market and exports in the world, from 1990 to 2013, the country received 7 batteries with an unknown number of launchers from the United States and Germany.
