Ukraine's creative use of weapons brings promise and risks

U.S. officials say Ukraine must continue to develop innovative ways to attack Russian forces as the war approaches its third year. But Ukraine's use of a Patriot missile to down a plane last month is an example of how new battlefield tactics can be both dangerous and promising.

According to U.S. officials, the Russian military may have been transporting Ukrainian prisoners of war without the Ukrainian military's knowledge.

The Patriot is a defense system usually used to protect a location and not to shoot down aircraft. A European partner provided the Patriot interceptor that hit the Russian Ilyushin-76 cargo plane on January 24, according to US officials briefed on the incident.

Russian officials immediately claimed that the plane was carrying 65 Ukrainian prisoners of war, who were to be exchanged for Russian soldiers.

Publicly, U.S. officials would not comment on what caused the plane's downing, although officials who spoke privately on condition of anonymity said reports of the use of a Patriot missile were accurate.

The question of who was on the plane is less clear. U.S. officials did not confirm the identities of the passengers but said it appeared likely that at least some of them were Ukrainian prisoners. U.S. and Ukrainian officials say Russia may have overestimated the number of deaths.

If there were prisoners on the plane, as seems likely, U.S. officials said the loss of life was regrettable.

Ukraine appears to have acted on legitimate but flawed intelligence. The plane had previously been used to carry missiles, making it a valuable target for Kiev, Western officials briefed on the intelligence said.

While the Patriot was being fired from Ukraine, the cargo plane crashed in Russia. Some U.S. officials say they have encouraged Ukraine to strike far behind the front lines, but only on Ukrainian territory, mindful of the risk of escalation if U.S. equipment is used in attacks on Russian territory.

Nevertheless, U.S. officials have not criticized Ukraine for using the Patriot system to attack Russian aircraft in general. Instead, they have said that this is the kind of innovation that Ukraine will have to embrace.

Last month, U.S. military planners met with Ukrainian counterparts in Wiesbaden, Germany, to discuss new tactics that could help change the dynamics of the war, which has been stalemated for the past year.

One question is whether operations with patriots are sustainable, especially if Congress cuts further military aid to Ukraine. The Congressional Research Service estimates that each interceptor costs $4 million. If US funding is no longer available, air defense supplies will likely come under pressure.

The Patriot was originally designed to hit aircraft, but was redesigned after the Gulf War to be used primarily to attack tactical ballistic missiles as these weapons become more common and important on the battlefield.

The Ukrainians have returned the Patriot to its origins as an anti-aircraft weapon. In January, believing the Russian cargo plane was loaded with missiles, the Ukrainians ambushed it. They moved a Patriot launcher closer to the border and then fired an interceptor when the cargo plan was in range. The tactic, U.S. officials said, is creative but not revolutionary.

Ukrainian officials first hatched the plan to use the Patriots against aircraft last spring, partly in an effort to slow the Russian aerial bombardment. On May 13, the Ukrainians sneaked a Patriot launcher into an area near the Russian border and shot down five planes.

After that operation, Ukraine secretly moved a Patriot system south where it was used shoot down a Su-35, a Russian fighter plane, over the Black Sea.

Only months later, in November, did Ukraine confirm the operations, arguing that the use of the Patriot had, at least for a while, deterred Russian operations.

“They refrained from flying there for a while because they understood it was dangerous and that they could be shot down,” Yurii Ihnat, an air force spokesman, told reporters in Ukraine. “The Patriot system offers such capabilities.”

Over the course of the winter, the pace of activity seems to have increased again. In December, the Ukrainians claimed to have shot down five Russian fighter jets.

President Volodymyr Zelensky said the operations had “created the right atmosphere for the entire coming year” and promised more would follow. Although the Ukrainians did not provide details on how they shot down the jets in December, military analysts said Patriot missiles were likely used.

The commander of a Patriot battery told The New York Times in December that the deterrent effect of a Patriot battery was significant.

“If pilots know that there is a Patriot somewhere in the area, they will think ten times whether to go there to work or not,” the commander said, insisting that only his first name, Volodymyr, be used for security reasons.

While he declined to discuss specific operations, he said that “the Patriot has already demonstrated its range, a very long range, which allows it to shoot down these planes.”

Michael Schwirtz in New York City, Anton Trojanovsky in Berlin, Thomas Gibbons-Neff in London and Erik Schmitt in Washington contributed to the reporting.