There will be howls of "escalation" from the Kremlin and its stooges in the West, but in #Patriot, the U.S. is giving Ukraine a strong shield, not a sword. cnn.com/2022/12/13/pol…
This system will significantly improve Ukraine's air defenses, and give it the possibility to protect itself from the threat of attack by ballistic missiles - Russia is known to have been attempting to procure ballistic missiles from Iran.
A long-range system, Patriot gives Ukraine the chance to add another layer to its air defenses, which include the shorter-range NASAMS, IRIS-T, and Gepard - all of which have proved highly effective. Ukraine also obtained the elderly yet still effective Hawk SAM from Spain.
Ukraine itself operates the Soviet-era S-300 SAM system, another aging system that proved not up to the task of reliably protecting the country against attack by Russia's cruise missiles.
Ukraine's fighter jet pilots have also become expert in shooting down Russian cruise missiles and Iranian suicide drones. But until Ukraine has Patriot up and running, the country has no defense against ballistic missiles other than trying to destroy them at their launch sites.
Case in point. Russia understands perfectly that NATO is a defense alliance, and the only threat it poses is to the Kremlin’s ability to invade its neighbors. It even moved troops from its border with Norway and sent them to Ukraine. 
There was no prospect of the US sending Patriots to Ukraine before Russia’s full-scale invasion - that’s an absurd falsehood. They’re coming to Ukraine entirely due to Putin’s own aggression.
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