Why the US Won’t Give Patriot Interceptors to Ukraine

[rebewranger]

Why the US Won’t Give Patriot Interceptors to Ukraine

The Pentagon is still hunting “alternative options” to bolster Ukraine’s air defenses against Russia’s brutal strikes.
TARA COPP and MARCUS WEISGERBER | MARCH 10, 2022 07:22 PM ET
 
   
Pentagon officials will not send the advanced Patriot air-defense system to Ukraine, saying Thursday that U.S. forces would need to enter Ukraine to operate it, which is a non-starter for the Biden administration.

The decision comes one day after U.S. officials rejected a proposal from Poland to have the United States and NATO transfer Polish MiG-29 fighter jets to Ukraine.

“There's no discussion about putting a Patriot battery in Ukraine. In order to do that you have to put U.S. troops with it to operate it,” a senior defense official said Thursday. “It is not a system that the Ukrainians are familiar with and as we have made very clear, there will be no U.S. troops fighting in Ukraine.”

https://www.defenseone.com/threats/2022/03/why-us-wont-give-patriot-interceptors-ukraine/363042/

[rebewranger]

Our fearless POTUS hasn't thought this through!  Send a couple of batteries and let them get captured.  Then his allies will have all the info they need to know about the system, unless the Ruskies have already told him they've got enough info.

[Kamaji]

We cannot have U.S. troops operating U.S. weapons systems inside Ukraine.  That will start a wider war, and materially increases the likelihood of a strike on the U.S. itself by Russia, which would almost certainly be nuclear.