Ukraine set to double its German Patriot defense systems as Berlin commits two more.

German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius announced in Warsaw on Sept. 29, 2025, that Berlin will send Ukraine two more Patriot air defense systems, with support from Norway. The move reinforces Germany’s role as Kyiv’s lead supplier of high-end air defense as Russia escalates strikes.

German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius, on September 29, 2025, told the Warsaw Security Forum that Berlin will provide Ukraine with two additional Patriot air defense systems by the end of 2025, supported by Norway. The pledge lifts Germany’s total Patriot donations to five since Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022, underscoring Berlin’s role as Kyiv’s lead backer on high-end air defense. The announcement came during a panel titled “Winning the War Before the War,” where Pistorius framed the move as a direct response to escalating Russian strike activity and the need to harden Europe’s eastern airspace.
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The Patriot air defense system combines long-range GEM-T missiles and hit-to-kill PAC-3 interceptors, giving Ukraine the ability to counter aircraft, cruise missiles, and ballistic threats with high precision and layered protection (Picture source: U.S. DoW).

Patriot is a mobile, networked surface-to-air and missile-defense system built around a phased-array radar, a fire control station, and M903 launchers carried by heavy trucks. Ukraine employs mixed loads of PAC-2 GEM-T and PAC-3 interceptors, allowing a single battery to engage cruise missiles, aircraft, and terminal-phase ballistic threats. A typical launcher can pack four GEM-T missiles or up to a dozen PAC-3 MSE rounds, giving commanders the flexibility to tailor magazines to the threat and conserve scarce hit-to-kill interceptors for the most stressing targets.

The PAC-3 MSE interceptor, produced by Lockheed Martin, is the system’s premier anti-ballistic missile round. It relies on hit-to-kill guidance with a two-pulse solid rocket motor and enlarged control surfaces to extend the defended battlespace against maneuvering ballistic and advanced cruise threats. The GEM-T, derived from the larger PAC-2 family and built by Raytheon in cooperation with European partners, uses a proximity-fuzed fragmentation warhead optimized for aerodynamic targets flying at medium to high altitude. Together they create a layered effect inside a single battery: GEM-T for long-reach engagements against aircraft and many cruise missiles, PAC-3 MSE for hard-kill intercepts of ballistic and specialty threats closing on cities, power nodes, and air bases.

The addition of two German-provided batteries strengthens Ukraine’s integrated air and missile defense at a time of sustained Russian strike cycles. Patriot’s AN/MPQ-65/65A radar enables rapid multi-target tracking while the fire control architecture ties into Ukraine’s broader sensor and shooter grid, which also includes NASAMS and IRIS-T SLM. In practice, commanders disperse launchers to complicate Russian targeting and assign PAC-3 MSE “point defense” tasks around critical infrastructure, while GEM-T shots push the engagement envelope to blunt cruise-missile salvos. The system’s mobility allows periodic “shoot and scoot” to reduce exposure to counter-battery attacks, and mixed canisters help manage interceptor scarcity during multi-day bombardments.

Patriot batteries in Ukrainian service tactically operate with remote launchers spread across multiple concealed positions, connected by fiber or secure radio to a protected engagement control station. This dispersion creates overlapping engagement zones that frustrate Russian ISR and complicate battle-damage assessment. Crews employ the shoot-look-shoot doctrine, firing a single PAC-3 when track quality is high and holding a second round in reserve, while using GEM-Ts to thin out massed cruise-missile raids before they approach defended assets. Integration with national early warning radars and airborne ISR enables cued launches, shorter reaction times, and better discrimination of decoys, while routine relocation and emissions control reduce vulnerability to ballistic or loitering munition retaliation.

The pledge also lands amid a broader European push to expand Patriot capacity and solve munitions bottlenecks. MBDA and partners are preparing German-based production of Patriot launchers and PAC-2-class missiles, part of a multi-billion-euro effort to localize supply chains after two years of wartime demand. Even with U.S. and European ramp-ups, industry warns that interceptor consumption rates outpace output, sharpening the importance of multinational pooling and prioritized allocations for Ukraine. Pistorius used Warsaw to warn that Russia is “testing NATO allies with growing frequency and intensity,” a reality that reinforces the need for deeper industrial integration and faster delivery pipelines.

Berlin’s decision signals sustained German leadership on air defense as Kyiv and European capitals explore a joint aerial shield concept to harden the eastern flank. The two added Patriots will not, by themselves, close Ukraine’s air defense gap, but they raise the ceiling of what Kyiv can protect during winter strike campaigns and complement allied efforts to surge sensors, decoys, and counter-UAS systems. As Warsaw Security Forum discussions made clear, Europe is moving from ad hoc donations to a more durable architecture of production, stockpiling, and interoperability that will shape the continent’s security.