Leveraging the AIM-9M Sidewinders in a ground-based air defense application is arguably as relevant as on its Su-27 and MiG-29s.
I’d wondered about the Sidewinders that showed up in the most-recent US military aid package, as Ukraine doesn’t obviously have anything that can use them. I previously found and linked to an article suggesting that they were probably for anti-drone use and Ukraine had managed to use them on Warsaw Pact aircraft. However, The War Zone covers – in addition to the above possibility – some other possibilities that are maybe more-likely; they’re suggesting that there may be some undisclosed variant of a SAM system that can fire these.
Did any of the EU countries give Ukraine NASAMS as part of a package?
Yes, but normally those can’t use this variant of Sidewinder.
The article gives the possibility of a modified version of NASAMS which can handle them, the existence of which has not yet been made public, as one possibility for SAM use.
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