Several photos shared on social networks indicate that the modern IRIS-T air defense complex, delivered by Germany to Ukraine, has already begun to be used by the Ukrainian Armed Forces.

German air defense system IRIS-TPhoto: Schoening / imageBROKER / Profimedia

Records show that the remains of one of the surface-to-air missiles it launched were found by local residents in the Kyiv area, which, like other major Ukrainian cities, was the target of a Russian cruise missile attack last Monday.

The administrators of the Ukraine Weapons Tracker page remind that the IRIS-T system was designed to destroy such targets as cruise missiles used by the Russian Armed Forces, for example the Kh-101 missile shot down today in the Chernihiv region, although probably not with a German-made system.

German Defense Minister Christine Lambrecht announced on October 11 that the IRIS-T system promised to Ukraine by the government in Berlin had arrived in Kyiv.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz announced on June 1 that Germany will send to Ukraine this air defense system, the most modern equipment of the Berlin armed forces.

Ukraine is getting more and more air defense systems

Last Tuesday, US President Joe Biden also promised his Ukrainian counterpart, Volodymyr Zelenskyi, that the US would supply Ukraine with advanced air defense systems.

During the phone conversation, the US president also expressed his “condolences” to his colleague after Russia’s massive attacks on Kyiv and other Ukrainian cities.

At the end of September, Zelenskyi already reported that Ukraine had received missiles for the national advanced anti-aircraft missile system (NASAMS) from the United States.

Over the summer, the United States promised to send two NASAMS air defense systems to Kyiv, but it was not clear whether the launchers had reached Ukraine until the Ukrainian president’s statement on September 25.

The NASAMS ground-to-air system, developed by the American company Raytheon Technologies and the Norwegians from Kongsberg, is currently used in 12 countries around the world, including a number of NATO member countries (the USA, Norway, the Netherlands, Spain, Lithuania and Hungary). ).

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