The first HAWK air defense systems arrived in Ukraine from Spain.

Oleksii Reznikov, Minister of Defense of Ukraine, reported about this.

Margarita Robles, Minister of Defense of Spain, also came to Ukraine and met with Oleksii Reznikov in Odesa.

During the meeting, the parties agreed that more Ukrainian military personnel would be able to undergo training in Spain.

In addition, the defense ministers honored the memory of the fallen Ukrainian soldiers, and also visited the wounded Ukrainian defenders in the hospital.

Spain promised Ukraine six American-made MIM-23 HAWK (Homing All the Way Killer) medium-range surface-to-air missile systems.

These systems are capable of performing anti-missile defense tasks.

In November, Spain announced that it would host 64 Ukrainian military personnel who would undergo training in Toledo. Also, 19 Ukrainian servicemen were trained to use the Aspide SAM. According to the Ministry of Defense, Spain has the opportunity to train about 400 Ukrainian soldiers every two months.

HAWK

MIM-23 Hawk is a medium-range anti-aircraft missile system manufactured by Raytheon. It was adopted by the United States in 1960, and since then, it has undergone several modernization programs.

In 1994, the United States Army replaced the system with the MIM-104 Patriot SAM. But the American Marine Corps used the HAWK until 2002.

The first version of the air defense system hada range of up to 25 km and an altitude of up to 13,700 m. After modernization, the maximum target interception range was increased to 40 km with a maximum interception altitude of 18 km.

From 2021, the Spanish Improved HAWK air defense systems are undergoing phased modernization under the Hawk 21 program — which represents an improved and more compact modification of the system.