US transfers 90 Patriot interceptors from Israel to Ukraine — report

Axios says Netanyahu, fearing Russia, only agreed to return the mothballed system to the US after Zelensky refused to take calls from him regarding Uman pilgrimage

A Patriot missile mobile launcher is displayed outside the Fort Sill Army Post near Lawton, Oklahoma, on March 21, 2023. (AP/Sean Murphy, File)
A Patriot missile mobile launcher is displayed outside the Fort Sill Army Post near Lawton, Oklahoma, on March 21, 2023. (AP/Sean Murphy, File)

The US took 90 Patriot air defense interceptors out of storage in Israel and sent them to Poland to pass on to Ukraine this week, according to a Tuesday report that cited three unnamed sources familiar with the matter.

The sources told Axios that Ukraine asked the US to pass on the Patriot interceptors to it after Israel announced that it was decommissioning the air defense system, though Israel had dragged its feet at first for fear of retaliation from Russia.

One of the sources, a Ukrainian official, was cited as saying that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu dodged Ukrainian calls on the issue for weeks and only agreed to discuss it after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky refused to take calls from him on the issue of ultra-Orthodox Israelis making their annual Rosh Hashanah pilgrimage to Uman.

Spokespeople for Netanyahu denied that there was any connection between Israel agreeing to the transfer of the interceptors and Uman. They also confirmed to Axios that Israel returned a Patriot system to the US but said they didn’t know if it was then delivered to Ukraine.

Another source, an Israeli official, was quoted as saying that Israel had notified Russia of the interceptors’ transfer back to the US, while emphasizing that the Jewish state was “only returning the Patriot system to the US.”

The Pentagon and the US European Command declined Axios’s request for comment.

This handout photograph taken and released by the Ukrainian Presidential Press Service on January 22, 2025, shows Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky (R) shaking hands with Israel’s President Isaac Herzog (L) prior to their talks during the World Economic Forum (WEF) annual meeting in Davos. (Handout / UKRAINIAN PRESIDENTIAL PRESS SERVICE / AFP)

Throughout the war in Ukraine, Israel has consistently condemned Russia’s invasion, but only provided limited support to Ukraine, including humanitarian aid and an aerial warning system — not weaponry, despite repeated pleas from Kyiv.

Overall, Israel produced a relatively restrained response to the invasion due to Russia’s widespread military presence in Syria, Israel’s northern neighbor, and the need to balance security interests at home and policy abroad while maintaining relations with both Moscow and Kyiv.

The Israeli Air Force began fazing out the use of the Patriot system last year in favor of more advanced Israeli-made air defenses.

As the Patriot, which was known in Israel as “Yahalom” (diamond), was retired for good, its staff was retrained to work with the Iron Dome instead and the remaining batteries and interceptors have since been put in storage.

The US-made system officially entered Israeli service in 1991 but only made its first interception in 2014, downing a Hamas drone launched from the Gaza Strip.

Over the following decade, the system, designed to shoot down aircraft, intercepted only some 10 targets, according to the military, including Syrian fighter jets that breached Israeli airspace in 2014 and 2018.

Emanuel Fabian contributed to this report.

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