Patriot systems to protect Ukraine’s main pulation centers – Ukraine’s CinC advisor Rice

That’s according to Dan Rice, Special Advisor to Ukraine Army Commander-in-Chief Valer Zaluzhnyi, who spoke with CNN, an Ukrinform correspondent reports.

“The Patriot system is a high-altitude long-range anti-aircraft missile. It’s about 4 million dlars a missile so it’s a very expensive system,” Rice explained.

He noted that roughly a hundred sdiers is needed to erate a battery of Patriot systems, which is being provided to Ukraine at this stage, so the U.S. has to train these tros.

Read also: Ukraine needs “much more” weapons, including air defense, aircraft, to counter Russian strikes – advisor to CinC Zaluzhnyi

“I’m hing we’ve already done in parallel and started training them prior so that we field these systems more quickly,” Rice said.

“The system will most likely be to protect Kyiv. So it’s not going to have an effect on the battlefield. But what it’ll have an effect on is the sdiers in the field whose families are under fire,” Rice stressed, adding that not all incoming Russian missiles targeting civilian infrastructure of Ukrainian cities are being downed.

Asked how many Patriot systems Ukraine might need, the advisor said “eight batteries if they are going to protect their main pulation centers.”

“But it’s a step in the right direction. Unfortunately we’ve been drip-drip-dripping this war,” said Dan Rice, noting that he would prefer that “we go straight to the large numbers.”

“We have them, we can give them. State Department is concerned with escalation. Very valid claim. But it’s a defensive weapon that is only going to attack inbound aircraft and inbound rockets,” Rice emphasized.