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Will Italy send Samp-t anti-aircraft systems to Ukraine?

1 year ago babelfish

Will Italy send Samp-t anti-aircraft systems to Ukraine?

Defense Minister Guido Crosetto is cautious about Ukraine's demand for anti-aircraft systems. His remarks to Il Messaggero follow yesterday's phone call between Zelensky and Meloni, after which the Ukrainian president tweeted that Rome was considering providing anti-aircraft defenses

Italy is considering supplying air defense systems to Ukraine.

Yesterday, Ukrainian President Zelensky tweeted that Rome was considering providing air defenses after a telephone conversation with Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni.

But today, in an interview with Il Messaggero , Italian Defense Minister Guido Crosetto adopted a cautious tone on the possibility that Italy is able to supply Ukraine with air defense systems, as urged by Zelensky. On Kiev's request for anti-aircraft systems, he explains that the construction of the sixth Ukrainian decree has not yet begun, but 'if it is possible, we will certainly help them defend themselves', he adds.

Just this month Crosetto confirmed to Reuters that the Franco-Italian SAMP/T air defense system was among the military aid Kyiv had requested from Rome. Recently, the President of Ukraine Zelensky has already urged Italy to send the Franco-Italian Samp/T air defense system . But so far Rome does not seem to have any intention of giving up the sophisticated systems since it has few in its supply (5 batteries located at the 4th anti-aircraft artillery regiment in Mantua).

According to Corriere rumors, "Crosetto has already gone to France to probe the Macron government's willingness to jointly offer Kiev this sophisticated surface-to-air missile system – for defense, not for offense – to protect infrastructure and the population from Russian attacks which they come from the sky".

All the details.

THE PHONE CALL BETWEEN MELONS AND ZELENSKY

Yesterday Meloni confirmed Zelensky's full political and military support for Kiev in a telephone conversation. The cordial conversation, explains Palazzo Chigi, followed the telephone conversation that Meloni and Zelensky had had on 28 October. In particular, the Prime Minister renewed the full support of the Italian Government in Kiev in the political, military, economic and humanitarian fields, in the restoration of energy infrastructures and in the future reconstruction of Ukraine. So Meloni reaffirmed Italy's maximum commitment to every useful action to arrive at a just peace for the Ukrainian nation.

SUPPLY OF AIR DEFENSE SYSTEMS TO UKRAINE IS “UNDER CONSIDERATION”

For his part, the Ukrainian president thanked President Meloni for Italy's solidarity and support for Ukraine. “I praised the government's allocation of 10 million euros in additional aid. Meloni informed me that the issue of providing air defense systems to protect the Ukrainian skies is under consideration,” Zelensky explained. "We discussed the formula for peace" in Ukraine, continued the head of state in a message on Twitter.

THE POSITION OF DEFENSE MINISTER CROSETTO

But with regard to the air defenses requested by Zelensky from Italy, Defense Minister Guido Crosetto took care of it today to clarify the issue through an interview granted to the newspaper Il Messaggero .

“We have not yet begun the construction of the sixth decree. If it is possible we will certainly help them to defend themselves”: the supply must be compatible, Crosetto specified, with the possibility of having these weapons and giving them to Kiev in good working order. “You don't find rockets in the supermarket like a jar of Nutella, they are complex systems that require long production times. You can't say: “okay, tomorrow I'll go and buy a hundred missiles”. They are not here. Therefore, if we give air defense systems to Ukraine, we must take them from our stocks and we must do it without disposing of ourselves and with the certainty of quality” concluded the defense minister.

WHAT IS THE SAMP/T MISSILE DEFENSE SYSTEM

Samp/t is the European air defense and anti-missile system, developed by Italy jointly with France since the 2000s.

It is a latest generation surface-to-air missile system developed by the Eurosam European consortium (made up of the companies MBDA Italia, MBDA France and Thales) for Italy and France. The purpose is to replace the Hawk missile system. The weapon system is characterized by high tactical and strategic mobility (it can be easily redeployed by air, sea and rail).

The Samp/T system is capable of neutralizing Tbm, Tactical Ballistic Missile threats, with engagements at distances of up to 100 km.

In the aftermath of the announcement by the United States last June of the sending of Norwegian Surface-to-Air Missile Systems (NASAMs) to Ukraine , which have a range of over 160 kilometres, it was speculated that Rome and Paris could contribute Samp/t earth-air system.

THE EQUIPMENT OF THE ITALIAN ARMY

But the Italian Army has 5 batteries at the 4th anti-aircraft artillery regiment in Mantua.

Since the system entered service in 2013, the Armed Forces have deployed the Samp/T in multiple operational and training activities. As stated on the army website : “between 2015 and 2016 a Samp/T unit was deployed in Rome for surveillance of the capital's skies on the occasion of the Extraordinary Jubilee of Mercy; at the same time a second battery operated in Turkey as part of the NATO "Active Fence" operation from June 2016 to December 2019 against tactical ballistic missiles from Syrian territory. Furthermore, the Samp/t is included in the NATO Active Layered Theater Ballistic Missile Defense (ALTBMD) programme. The latter was created with the aim of achieving the defense of areas or vital objectives of interest of the Alliance from the missile threat”.

The current version of the Samp/T has state-of-the-art capabilities in countering airborne threats and short-range tactical ballistic missiles.

This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/mondo/difesa-italia-inviera-i-sistemi-antiaerei-samp-t-ucraina/ on Wed, 28 Dec 2022 14:26:58 +0000.