The US military is considering training Ukrainian forces how to use Patriot missile defense systems at a base in the United States, POLITICO reported Thursday, citing two unnamed Pentagon officials.
One Patriot air defense battery and munitions for the system were included in the $1.85 billion weapons package the US announced for Ukraine on Wednesday. It marks an escalation in US military aid as the Raytheon-made Patriots are considered to be the most advanced air defense systems in the US arsenal.
According to military experts, it should take about six months to train Ukrainians how to use the system, a timeline that would put the system on the battlefield by early summer if training began soon. Operating one Patriot battery requires about 90 troops, demonstrating how advanced the system is.
The Pentagon has been training Ukrainians on how to use other US-provided weapons in Germany and elsewhere in Europe but hasn’t had a similar program inside the US since Russia invaded in February. If the training is done in the US, it would likely be at Fort Sill, Oklahoma, where officials told POLITICO most of the trainers and simulators are located.
The report said that the Pentagon is considering whether to do all the training in the US or to complete other portions of it in a third country. An official said that the US wouldn’t give Ukraine the battery until its forces know how to use it, and it would likely be a system that the US military has in storage rather than one that’s deployed.
Raytheon, now HQ’d in Virginia, in hollering distance of DC. Where its former board member Lloyd
Austin is the secretary of defense. VA is now the nexus of the US defense industry. The US is very rapidly revving up a WWII-style defense industry to replace its devastated manufacturing capability. Obviously very dangerous, etc. But how many in US really are aware of this conversion of plowshares into swords?
No one who matters or has any say in national policy has the power to stop or shrink the MIC or keep them from their chosen course of destroying their lifelong enemy Russia. Russia has the capability as does the US to end life on our planet.The Capitalists in the US are not listening or caring. All they know is profits and do not care who or how many die..This is truly a frightening and insane policy.
When U.S. is so paranoid that they can’t risk training them in Poland or Germany.
If the US follows through on its threat to arm Ukraine to the teeth with more missiles that threaten the existence of Russia they will force Putin to respond in a way that won’t be good for humanity. Surely the US is not that crazy or are they?
I`m afraid they are that crazy , 33 countries invaded since 1953 millions of civilians dead , failed states , dictatorships ect ect are the results , with the US getting rich from it.
Yep. Karma’s a bitch.
Maybe they’ll train them ten feet in front of the Pentagon.
They should have an ice cream truck on standby. Frozen cherry popsicles is their favorite.
We are messing with fire…
Both wings of the Lemmings Partei are marching in unison to the cliff, so full of themselves and their partisan BS that the prospect of annihilation is just a faint shudder at the apex of their collective bowel.
Civilization will drown in their diarrhea.
Well said OB.
Thanks. Have a happy, healthy holiday, DV!
You too OB. I hope that we all do…
++++
Check out Brian Berletic on the New Atlas to find how useful one Patriot gift some time or other will actually be to help you and Zelinskyy.
So, using the Israeli attacks on Iranian forces in Syria as precedent, Russia would be perfectly justified in attacking those training bases, right? No argument from anyone, right?
“According to military experts, it should take about six months to train Ukrainians how to use the system, a timeline that would put the system on the battlefield by early summer if training began soon. Operating one Patriot battery requires about 90 troops, demonstrating how advanced the system is.”
Considering the significant VSU losses Ukraine is sustaining; the Patriot’s extended training period; the fact that the US may have at least 1,000 troops and “mercenaries” in theater; why wouldn’t Washington immediately send a US-staffed battery or two there?
Thomas Knapp pointed out that one of the big points of deploying the unit is to see how Russia blows it up, learns how to deal with the countermeasures, and uses the Russian tactics against them in future encounters
According to Russian sources, this has already started to happen. According to Russian sources, the US sent 7 drones to attack something in the Crimea.
BIG RUSSIAN VICTORY ALL THE DRONES WERE SHOT DOWN. And the conclusion was: the missiles sent to destroy the drones cost 10x or possibly 100x what the drones cost
It sounds like we are doing cost-benefit work. For our systems, and for theirs, how many drones will it take to destroy the systems, and what are the costs to both sides.
It is likely that both the US and Russia are studying in detail every minute piece of information from these attacks. It sounds like both sides are gearing up for drone wars. The side that produces the bestest fastest most destructive drones wins.
Of course, if all of the drones land in either Ukraine or Russia, we win either way.
Before any Ukrainian units can be trained in the use of advanced systems Ukraine will cease to exist as a country.
It already did in 2014. Ukraine and pretty much all left Europe is occupied territory.
Украина – оккупированная территория и через несколько месяцев ее не будет
Ukraine will remain. The occupational regime and all terrorist filth will be gone.
In fact, I believe that Kiev will become the foundation and the capital of entire European continent. Free from Anglo-American occupation.
If this comes to pass, I do hope that there will be massive demonstrations outside Fort Sill to protest this idiocy.
ByeDone (whom I’m convinced is actually a cadaver) and the Blinkin’ Idiot, among others, are inching us ever closer towards nuclear annihilation. Good riddance to those of us who support this bullsh*t .
And too bad for the rest of us.