President Biden has approved the deployment of another Patriot missile system to Ukraine, senior administration and military officials said, as the country struggles to fend off Russian attacks on its cities, infrastructure and electrical grid.
Considered one of the United States’ best air-defense weapons, the Patriot includes a powerful radar system and mobile launchers that fire missiles at incoming projectiles.
Officials describe moving the critical systems around the world’s hot spots like a shell game, assessing which global crisis requires them most to defend U.S. troops, bases and allies.
The demand for Patriots and other air defenses from the Pentagon’s Central Command, which conducts operations in the Middle East, has been especially intense over the past year, and particularly since Hamas’s deadly attack against Israel in October.
Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III and other senior Pentagon leaders have appealed to European allies to transfer their systems to Ukraine.
In recent months, a barrage of Russian missile and drone strikes on Ukraine’s power plants and substations has severely hobbled energy infrastructure, forcing Ukrainian authorities to order nationwide rolling blackouts.
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