IRIS-T SLM / SLS

Record

Conflict relevance

This is the catalogue's single record for this system. It is relevant to the module below; each module's Force Atlas shows how it is used there.

Operators

Ukraine: Donated by Germany from 2022; no Ukrainian production.

Battlefield role

Point and area defence against cruise missiles, aircraft and drones, identified in specialist assessment as one of the two principal medium-range systems — with NASAMS — carrying Ukraine's cruise-missile defence. It sits above the cheap counter-drone belt and below Patriot and SAMP/T, and it is not the layer that engages ballistic missiles. That separation is the point: a system that performs well against one threat class buys nothing against another.

Strengths

Effective as a point-defence asset against cruise missiles, and supplied by a single donor with a continuing production relationship rather than assembled from a drawdown of existing stocks.

Limitations

Not an anti-ballistic system. Its supply is entirely external, and the constraint that applies to every donated layer applies here: the number of launchers fielded matters less than the rate at which interceptor missiles are replaced, and that rate is not published.

Documented conflict use

In documented Ukrainian service since 2022. The German Federal Government's own itemisation of military support — the only primary source that separates what has been delivered from what is planned — recorded six IRIS-T (SLM/SLS) systems delivered together with SLM and SLS missiles, against ten systems listed as planned or in execution. That list is explicitly an overview as of 17 April 2025 and states that it will not be updated further, so it establishes a floor for deliveries at that date and says nothing about what has arrived since. Higher figures reported during 2026 are attributed in media reporting to Ukrainian officials and are not published here, because no primary source was found to support them.