Hey friends.
On August 25, standing next to Estonian President Alar Karis in Kyiv, Volodymyr Zelensky said something that managed to be both good news and a warning shot at the same time.
“To be honest, some Patriot missiles also arrived. I cannot say how many, but some. We need more.”
That’s the whole quote, and I want you to notice everything he didn’t say.
Not how many.
Not which country sent them.
Not which variant of interceptor.
Just: some arrived, and it isn’t enough.
Back on August 6, Zelensky met with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte to secure more Patriot interceptors ahead of winter. It would be my guess that this first small batch is likely the result of that meeting.
Yesterday, he also confirmed Ukraine received a fresh batch of AIM air-to-air missiles and, in the same breath, said Kyiv had gotten confirmation that several French Crotale air-defense systems and their missiles would be delivered, again declining to say which country was actually sending them.
The Crotale is notable because I don’t think a lot of people are familiar with this system; so, I figured today we’d take an in-depth look at the Crotale.
By the way, I saw reporting that said Crotale was a French MANPAD.
A MANPAD is the thing most people picture when they hear “portable air defense”: a soldier with a Stinger or Igla on his shoulder.
Crotale NG is actually several weight classes above that.
We’re talking about a complete short-range surface-to-air missile system built around radar, electro-optical sensors, fire-control equipment, computers, and eight ready-to-fire VT-1 missiles.
Depending on the configuration, the whole package can sit on a vehicle or trailer. Nobody is throwing one over his shoulder unless France has quietly developed a super-soldier program I somehow missed. Sacre Bleu!
The name Crotale, incidentally, is French for rattlesnake - or so my French-speaking wife tells me. For once, the weapons marketing department got something right.
(I only speak English, Texan, bad Russian, and enough Spanish to bribe my way out of a jail in Ecuador.)
The rattlesnake at the middle of Ukraine’s air-defense stack
Crotale has been around in one form or another since the Cold War.
The original system emerged from a South African requirement in the 1960s, France adopted its own version in the following decade, and the much more capable Crotale NG, or “New Generation,” arrived around 1990.
That makes it old by defense-industry standards.
But, as Ukraine has repeatedly proven, old shit can be useful shit.
