Patriot missile system Latest US weapon going to Ukraine explained

The US has announced plans to supply Ukraine with Patriot missiles to counter the threat of Russian airstrikes. In recent months Moscow has carried out a series of missile and drone attacks to try and cripple Ukraine’s infrastructure. The missiles that Ukraine is likely to get with their Patriot are actually sixteen to a trailer, not four. The launcher with those four really big missiles are the older missiles that are intended specifically to shoot down airplanes...fighter jets and bombers, helicopters, etc. There are no Russian fighter jets or helicopters getting close enough to Kyiv to be engaged by those missiles. The entire reason Patriot is being sent is because Iran is either considering, or has already agreed to, send ground-launched ballistic missiles to Russia so Russia can do even more damage to Ukraine's electric grid and murder many more Ukrainian civilians than they already are. The NATO systems that are already in Ukraine are not designed to counter ballistic missiles. Since the Gulf War, Patriot's primary mission has changed from strictly anti-aircraft with a secondary possibility of MAYBE shooting down a few ballistic missiles, to being tailored specifically to shoot down incoming ballistic and cruise missiles. It is now more of an anti-missile system than an anti-aircraft system, although it can certainly still track and shoot down enemy aircraft. When you see a Patriot launcher, you will sometimes see the missiles mixed-and-matched. You'll see two large missile canisters on one side and then on the other side you'll see two canisters with a quad pack of smaller missiles. Or some trailer may have only four quad packs of smaller missiles for 16 total per trailer. The big missile canisters are the older anti-aircraft missiles. The canisters that have the quad pack are the smaller anti-missile missiles. The system determines what kind of target it is tracking (either an incoming ballistic/cruise missile or an enemy fighter jet, bomber, helicopter, etc) and then fires off the type of missile designed for that target. Ukraine will probably still get some of the anti-aircraft missiles for their Patriot system just in case, but I suspect that most of them will be the smaller, quad-packed anti-missile missiles because that is going to be Patriot's primary target and primary reason for being sent to Ukraine. Ukraine has nothing to defend against incoming ballistic missiles right now and Patriot will provide that.