Propagandists spreading fake about Ukrainian Patriot system that ended up in China
In the past few days, a number of English-language accounts on the social media site X, alongside Russian propaganda Telegram channels and media outlets, have begun to share a photo showing the alleged transportation in China of a U.S.-made Patriot air defense missile launcher. And it seems that the Patriot is being transported for further analysis and technical expertise. The authors of the posts have two assumptions about how the system ended up in China. The first is that the Russians seized it in Ukraine and handed it over to China, and the second is that Ukraine sold it to Russia.
This is a fake. This photo has nothing to do with the air defense systems that Ukraine received from partner countries. It turned out that a mock-up system is in the photo. The launcher has the inscription "Inert" on its left side. Such an inscription means that military equipment is not active and combat. Such samples can often be seen during demonstrations and exhibitions.
In addition, the Patriot launcher has single wheels at the back, but in the mockup system, they are double.
The generator, which should be installed on Patriot air defense missile launchers, is also missing in the dummy.
Oleh Katkov, editor-in-chief of the information and consulting company Defense Express, told Ukrinform that the image shows a high-quality mock-up of the Patriot air defense system and suggested that it was created for the training of the Chinese army.
"First and foremost, a sign of this is the inscription 'Inert.' It was likely copied when the dummy from the photo was created. Also, this mockup doesn't seem to have been done to full scale. Also, the real launcher has significantly more cables, it has single wheels, other supports," he added.
China quite often uses the dummies of various models of American weapons for training. Earlier, the U.S. Naval Institute reported that the Chinese military had built targets in the shape of an American aircraft carrier and other U.S. warships in the Taklamakan desert as part of a new target range complex.
Russian propaganda uses such a fake to discredit Ukraine in front of its allies, saying that the equipment that NATO supplies to Ukraine ends up, through the Russian Federation, in the hands of its direct competitors - China, which will conduct an examination of the American system and will have an understanding of how to manufacture air defense systems.
The fake is nonsense given that the Patriot air defense system, in addition to launchers, includes a radar, a control station and other auxiliary operational equipment. The launcher is only part of a larger system.
The United States carefully monitors the use of weapons provided to Ukraine and no cases of smuggling have been recorded so far. The seizure of such weapons would immediately cause a flurry of news stories in the foreign media.
Earlier, Ukrinform refuted the fake about the first NATO troops being sent to Ukraine.
Dmytro Badrak
