Jane Edwards
Greg Hayes, chairman and CEO of Raytheon Technologies, said the U.S. is collaborating with countries in the Middle East to facilitate the transfer of National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile Systems from the region to Ukraine in the next three to six months with plans to replenish those with new NASAMS in the next two years, Politico reported Thursday.
“There are NASAMS deployed across the Middle East, and some of our NATO allies and we [the U.S.] are actually working with a couple of Middle Eastern countries that currently employ NASAMS and trying to direct those back up to Ukraine,” Hayes said in an interview.
He stated that moving NASAMS from the Middle East is faster than producing them in the U.S. since such systems take 24 months to build due to the lead time needed to procure rocket motors and electronic components.
According to the report, such an arrangement would require approval from the White House.
The U.S. Army announced on Wednesday that it awarded Raytheon a potential three-year, $1.2 billion contract to deliver six additional NASAMS to Ukraine as part of a security assistance initiative.
