Top NATO commander rushing to deliver fresh Patriots to Ukraine

WIESBADEN, Germany − NATO’s top commander said he is under guidance to move as quickly as possible in transferring more Patriot air and missile defense systems to Ukraine .

“I won’t go into a ton of details on any of that, I’m not going to tell the Russians or anyone else the exact numbers of weapons that we’re transferring or when those will happen,” U.S. Air Force Gen. Alexus Grynkewich, Supreme Allied Commander Europe, said at the Association of the U.S. Army’s inaugural LandEuro conference in Wiesbaden, Germany, July 17.

“We’re also looking at other capabilities and what those needs are and working on proposals for our political leadership,” Grynkewich said.

President Trump said publicly earlier this week that he intends to ship more Patriot systems to Ukraine.

The commander will soon bring European nations together to work on delivering Patriot and other capabilities, he said, to “look at what’s the art of the possible. This will be tied to being able to sequence what flows into Ukraine now … capabilities that are in Europe can be moved more quickly than something off the production line. The production line can then be used to back-fill the capabilities.”

The United States, which has been using Patriot since the Cold War era, sent systems to Ukraine for the first time in April 2023. Its interceptors went to work immediately, batting off even complex threats like hypersonic weapons.

A total of 19 countries have purchased the Raytheon-made weapon, and there are more than 250 Patriot fire units around the world.

Tom Laliberty, Raytheon’s president of land and air defense systems, told Defense News in an interview in 2024 that the U.S. owns 85-90 of those, with the rest distributed among the other 18 customer countries.

The U.S. Army is slated to build a new Patriot battery to replace the one sent to Ukraine and to secure one more battalion’s worth of systems.

International customers are on the rise, and countries like Germany that also have sent Patriot to Ukraine have ordered new ones to replenish those sent and to bolster their own defenses.

Raytheon’s production lines have the capacity to make 12 fire units a year, which the company views as sufficient capacity to support current and future contracts as they materialize.

At the same time Lockheed Martin is racing to increase its production of the Patriot Advanced Capability-3 Missile Segment Enhancement, or PAC-3 MSE, interceptor.

The company is contractually working toward delivering 650 PAC-3 MSE missiles per year by 2027. It is currently producing roughly 550 a year.

Lockheed is looking at how it might possibly ramp up to 650 missiles a year earlier, Jason Reynolds, company vice president of integrated air and missile defense within its missiles and fire control business, told Defense News at LandEuro here.

“What we’re endeavoring to do in partnership with the U.S. government, is to pull that left as much as we can,” he said.

The company is also looking at “the efficiencies and streamlining and doing everything we can to stretch those dollars actually to take that to a higher capacity, upwards of around 750 per year by 2027,” Reynolds said.

The government has not yet officially released the number for a top production level, “if you take that trajectory and you project it forward into the future years, you will see as well north of 1,000 and then even much higher after that,” he said.

While he doesn’t have a good sense of what the numbers will be, Grynkewich said, “I know that my guidance is to get the Ukrainians what they need to defend themselves. So there’ll be more to follow. We’re going to move as quickly as we can on this. A ton of coordination in making it work, but, as I mentioned, we’re already doing the preparation phase for the first tranche of capability to start moving with respect to Patriots.”

Jen Judson is an award-winning journalist covering land warfare for Defense News. She has also worked for Politico and Inside Defense. She holds a Master of Science degree in journalism from Boston University and a Bachelor of Arts degree from Kenyon College.

德国威斯巴登——北约最高指挥官表示，他正接到指示，尽快向乌克兰移交更多“爱国者”防空和导弹防御系统。

“我不会透露太多细节，我不会告诉俄罗斯人或任何其他人我们正在转让的武器的确切数量或转让时间，”美国空军上将、欧洲盟军最高司令亚历克西斯·格林克维奇 (Alexus Grynkewich) 于 7 月 17 日在德国威斯巴登举行的美国陆军协会首届 LandEuro 会议上表示。

格林克维奇说：“我们还在研究其他能力以及这些需求是什么，并正在制定提案提交给我们的政治领导层。”

特朗普总统本周早些时候公开表示，他打算向乌克兰运送更多爱国者导弹系统。

他说，指挥官很快将召集欧洲各国共同努力，交付“爱国者”导弹系统和其他能力，以“探讨各种可能性”。这将与能否按顺序向乌克兰输送物资息息相关……在欧洲部署的能力比生产线上的产品交付速度更快。生产线上的产品则可以用来补充空缺的能力。

美国自冷战时期以来就一直在使用“爱国者”导弹防御系统，并于 2023 年 4 月首次向乌克兰派遣了该系统。其拦截器立即投入使用，甚至击退了高超音速武器等复杂的威胁。

共有 19 个国家购买了雷神公司制造的这种武器，全世界有超过 250 套爱国者导弹防御系统。

雷神公司陆空防御系统总裁汤姆·拉利伯蒂在 2024 年接受《防务新闻》采访时表示，美国拥有其中 85-90 套系统，其余系统则分配给其他 18 个客户国家。

美国陆军计划建造一个新的“爱国者”导弹防御系统，以替换送往乌克兰的那个系统，并确保再拥有一个营的导弹系统。

国际客户数量不断增长，像德国这样也向乌克兰派遣了“爱国者”导弹系统的国家，已经订购了新的导弹系统来补充已派遣的导弹系统，并加强自身的防御。

雷神公司的生产线每年可生产 12 台消防设备，该公司认为这足以支持当前和未来合同的落实。

与此同时，洛克希德·马丁公司正在加紧提高其“爱国者”先进能力-3导弹段增强型（PAC-3 MSE）拦截器的产量。

该公司按合同规定，到 2027 年每年交付 650 枚 PAC-3 MSE 导弹。目前，该公司每年大约生产 550 枚。

洛克希德公司负责导弹和火控业务的综合防空和导弹防御副总裁杰森·雷诺兹在兰德欧罗展会上告诉《防务新闻》，该公司正在研究如何才能将导弹年产量提前至 650 枚。

他说：“我们正与美国政府合作，努力将这种趋势尽可能地向左拉。”

雷诺兹表示，公司也在考虑“提高效率、简化流程，尽一切可能提高资金使用效率，到 2027 年将产能提高到每年 750 辆左右”。

政府尚未正式公布最高产量水平的数字，“如果你按照这个趋势向前推算，你会发现产量会超过 1000，之后还会更高，”他说。

格林克维奇表示，虽然他并不清楚具体数字，但他说道：“我知道我的指导方针是确保乌克兰人拥有自卫所需的装备。所以后续还会有更多行动。我们将尽最大努力加快推进这项工作。这需要大量的协调工作才能成功，但正如我之前提到的，我们已经在为第一批爱国者导弹系统部署做准备。”

珍·贾德森是一位屡获殊荣的记者，为《防务新闻》报道陆地战争。她也曾为《政治报》和《内幕防务》工作。她拥有波士顿大学新闻学硕士学位和凯尼恩学院文学学士学位。