Ukraine seeks to purchase a modern air defense system from the United States, Ukrainian Ambassador to the United States Valeriy Chaly announced on 28 August.
According to Chaly, Ukraine has requested the possible sale of air defense systems from the United States at a cost of $750 million for one unit.
Experts have expressed concerns and divergent views on the issue. It is assumed that Ukraine requested the possible sale of the Patriot air defense system to replace its ageing S-300PT and S-300PS systems to strengthen its homeland defense and deter regional threats.
The Patriot air defense system is the foundation of integrated air and missile defense for 15 nations.
Since January of 2015, Patriot has intercepted more than 100 ballistic missiles in combat operations around the world. More than 90 of those intercepts involved the low-cost Raytheon-made Guidance Enhanced Missile family of surface-to-air missiles.
Raytheon has built more than 220 Patriot fire units and delivered them to customers in 15 nations which many nations have taken advantage of its flexible architectures to upgrade the systems.
