The Patriot missiles, whose shipment to Ukraine has been announced in recent hours by the President of the United States, Donald Trump, who specified that his European allies “will pay for it”, are one of the main anti-ballistic defense systems of the United States Army and serve to intercept attacks launched by adversaries by land and air.

The Patriot missile, designed in the late 1970s by Raytheon originally as an anti-aircraft defense weapon, was modified in the late 1980s to counter short-range ballistic missiles.

They were not tested in combat until 1991, during the Gulf War, when they achieved fame by becoming an almost infallible weapon to now intercept and destroy the Scud missiles used by Iraq, of Soviet manufacture and much slower.
His first operation, on February 18, 1991, was the shooting down at about 5,000 meters high of a Scud missile launched from Iraq against the Saudi base in Dahran.

The Patriot system is a 2.25-meter-long missile, powered by a single-stage rocket, which weighs almost a ton and operates at three times the speed of sound (Mach 3) with a range of 70 kilometers.

The Patriot that was used in the Gulf War was carrying a 90-kilogram explosive charge that exploded by a proximity detonator with such force that the explosion and splinters destroyed the missile against which it was fired.

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Since then, the system has undergone modifications that have given it greater precision and that have allowed it to increase its effectiveness not only against ballistic missiles but also against the so-called “cruise”, which have their own navigation means and change course during the flight.

Currently, the Patriot ground-to-air guided weapons system can “eliminate aircraft, helicopters and high-speed ballistic and cruise missiles,” which is possible up to “a height of 20 kilometers and a distance of 60 kilometers.”

A Patriot missile costs about 3 million dollars – three times more than a NASAMS missile (Advanced National Ground-to-Air Missile System), another of the systems that Ukraine has been using.

The Patriot system comprises a radar station, a control system and the missile launchers.

In December 2022, the United States Government, under the presidency of Joe Biden, authorized the dispatch of the Patriot missile system to Ukraine.

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The supply only included an anti-aircraft battery, which includes a radar that detects and follows the target, computers, generators and a control station, in addition to eight mini-shing with four missiles ready to fire.

The North American shipment was joined by two other Patriot systems from Germany and the Netherlands, which arrived in Ukraine in April 2023.

A month later, Russia claimed to have destroyed a Patriot anti-aircraft battery in Kiev, which, however, was operational again a few days later, according to the Pentagon.

In their first month of activity alone, Patriot systems sent to Ukraine shot down more than 80 targets, including seven Russian Kinzhal supersonic missiles, according to the Ukrainian Air Force.

The first Patriots shipments have been followed by others throughout the war, including those supplied by Spain and Romania to Ukraine.

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With the arrival of Donald Trump to the US presidency last January, military aid from the United States was suspended, and although Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky showed his interest in buying ten Patriot systems, Trump disdained the possibility.

However, at the end of June Trump changed his mind and opened up to the possibility of supplying these missiles to Ukraine, and finally last Sunday he announced that he will send them, but that his European allies “will pay for it.”

The search and rescue operation of the crew of the cargo ship ‘Eternity C’, sunk four days ago in the Red Sea after an attack by the Houthi rebels, has concluded with the rescue of 10 sailors while another 15 are still missing, the companies responsible for the operation reported on Monday.

“The decision to end the search was made by the company that owns the ship,” the maritime security companies ‘Diaplous’ and ‘Ambrey’, which carried out the search and rescue operation, said in a joint statement.

“The priority now must be to get the 10 rescued people to arrive safe and sound and provide them with the urgent medical support they need at this difficult time,” the statement said, citing the wishes of the owner company, the Greek ‘Cosmoship Management’.

The freighter was attacked on the 7th with drones, grenade launchers and speedboats by the Houthis southwest of the Yemeni port of Al Hodeida with 22 sailors on board and three armed guards, members of the security team, as a spokesman for the Greek company confirmed to EFE on the day of the attack.

The Houthi military spokesman, Yahya Sarea, said in a statement issued three days after the attack that “a group of special forces of the Yemeni Navy (Houti) intervened to rescue several members of the ship’s crew, provide them with medical care and transfer them to a safe place” without specifying the number of crew members or their whereabouts.

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The US mission in Yemen accused the Houthis in a statement of kidnapping “many surviving crew members” and demanded their immediate release.

Sources that closely follow the matter estimate that six sailors are currently in the hands of the Houthis, something that has not been confirmed by the rebels, according to the digital edition of the British weekly Tradewinds, specialized in maritime affairs.

It is believed that five people have died in the attack and have sunk with the ship at the bottom of the sea, according to the same source.

The Israeli Army killed at least 20 Palestinians in attacks against the Gaza Strip since dawn on Monday, medical sources told EFE.

In the south alone, 14 people died, including two who were waiting for the distribution of food at a distribution point, and several in the Israeli bombing against tents, where most of the forcibly displaced Gaza population lives.

A source from the Naser Hospital also announced the arrival of four other dead after an Israeli drone attack against a group of people in Jan Yunis.

In the northern city of Gaza, three members of the same family, including a woman, died in an Israeli airstrike near the university, the official Palestinian agency Wafa detailed, which also said that one more person died after the Israeli attack on a water distribution vehicle in Nuseirat (center).

Gaza is still deeplted into devastation, without enough food, drinking water or fuel to generate electricity due to the restrictions of Israel, the occupying power that controls the access points to the Palestinian enclave.

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On Thursday alone, for the second consecutive day, the UN managed to bring about 75,000 liters of fuel into Gaza, a gesture that, he said, constitutes a “fraction” of what is needed to maintain daily vital rescue operations, ambulances, operating rooms and electricity in hospitals.