Kyiv is negotiating with the US and Israel to deliver up to eight Patriot air defense systems to Ukraine.
This was reported by the Financial Times with reference to five people informed about the negotiations.
The final agreement is likely to see Israel send its Patriots to the United States and the United States to Ukraine. Apparently, Israel will sell its systems to the States so that the US can transfer them to Ukraine. The contours of the agreement were discussed by ministers and other high-ranking officials of the three countries.
In April, Israel said it would begin decommissioning eight of its Patriot batteries, which are more than 30 years old, as it wants to replace them with more advanced systems.
However, the batteries that Israel is using in its current war with the Islamist group Hamas have not yet been decommissioned due to fears that tensions with the Iran-backed militants could escalate into full-scale war.
While discussing the transfer of all eight Patriots, four interlocutors said that eventually not all systems will be able to be sent to Ukraine.
Three people close to the discussions said that Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba had been in talks with US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken on the matter in recent weeks. And White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan discussed this issue at least twice with the head of the Office of the President of Ukraine Andriy Yermak.
"Ukraine continues to work with various countries of the world to obtain additional Patriot systems. We once again call on all countries that have such systems to provide them to Ukraine," Kuleba told the Financial Times. Although he did not confirm the fact of such negotiations, the publication notes.
As one of the sources of the Financial Times reported, in addition to trilateral negotiations on this matter, Kyiv was conducting direct negotiations with Israel.
Israeli M901 PAC-2 batteries are older than most Patriot systems currently in Ukraine. However, military analysts say that the older model is still fully compatible with the new ones.
In addition, Israel has a large stockpile of interceptor missiles, which will go with these batteries to Ukraine. Analysts note that older Israeli interceptor missiles had a longer range and a larger warhead than the newer PAC-3 model.
"The PAC-2 is actually more useful than the PAC-3 for long-range interception of aircraft, so they will certainly be useful [in Ukraine]," said Justin Bronk, a senior researcher at the Royal Joint Institute for Defense Studies in London.
Since the beginning of Russiaʼs invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Israel has not been in a hurry to support one of the parties to the conflict. Earlier, Israel rejected Ukraineʼs requests to provide air defense systems.