Weakness makes Ukraine’s air defense ‘powerless to watch Russian missiles’

The US Senate Armed Services Committee last week asked the Pentagon to say whether it could increase deliveries of Patriot air defense missiles to Ukraine, due to concerns about the country’s defense ability against attacks by drones (UAVs) and missiles from Russia.

It is difficult to determine how many Patriot missiles Ukraine has in stockpiles, because this is classified information. However, Kiev has repeatedly admitted the scarcity of ammunition for Patriot and Western air defense complexes, calling on allies to maintain and step up aid.

In an interview published in April, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said the situation “couldn’t get any worse”. A month later, he sent an urgent letter to his counterpart Donald Trump and the US Congress, asking Washington to transfer more Patriot missiles to Kiev.

Colonel Yuri Ignat, press secretary of the Ukrainian Air Force Command, said the country has received more than 1,600 missiles, including the advanced PAC-3 model and the older PAC-2, since operating the first Patriot complex in mid-2023.

Newspaper New York Times On June 13, Ukraine’s air defense said at one point there were “only 16 Patriot shells left across the country”.

According to US air defense doctrine, defense forces need to launch 2-4 Patriot shells to intercept an enemy missile. This meant that Ukraine at that time could only deal with a maximum of 8 Russian missiles, while the enemy had enough to fire dozens of missiles in a raid.

The Ukrainian army possesses many air defense systems from the Soviet era, as well as a series of modern systems donated by the West. However, Ukrainian officials often emphasize that the Patriot is the only weapon that can deal with Russia’s Iskander-M ballistic missiles.

The New York Times described the shortage of Patriot ammunition as “one of Ukraine’s fatal weaknesses,” adding that Russian military planners are thoroughly exploiting the problem by increasing the intensity of ballistic missile attacks in recent weeks.

Experts say that no matter how many Patriot bullets Ukraine currently has, that number is not enough to deal with the large number of ballistic missiles used by Russia.

“When comparing the number of ballistic missiles Russia produces each month and the interceptor missiles the US produces annually, the numbers are simply too different,” said Oleh Katkov, editor-in-chief of the Ukrainian military website. Defense Expresssaid.

During the NATO-Ukraine Council meeting in early June, Mr. Zelensky cited Ukrainian intelligence estimates that Russia could produce about 120 ballistic missiles per month, equivalent to more than 1,400 per year.

According to results compiled by the New York Times based on data released daily by the Ukrainian air force, Russia used 74 ballistic missiles in 2023, but fired nearly 600 in 2025. From the beginning of the year to mid-June alone, Russian forces launched 410 ballistic missiles.

Lockheed Martin, the manufacturer of the Patriot complex, announced that it has delivered a total of 620 air defense missiles to customers around the world in 2025, equivalent to the number of ballistic missiles that Russia launched into Ukraine in the same period.

Anti-aircraft missiles must also be deployed at the right time and in the right place to be effective. Ukraine has a large area and many targets to protect, while the number of Patriot missiles and launchers is limited. The complexes must be spread out in many areas, causing the amount of combat-ready ammunition to be scattered and not always ensuring sufficient numbers.

Valerii Romanenko, an aviation expert and former defense officer at the National Aviation University of Ukraine, said that the country’s units often do not have enough missiles when having to deal with large-scale raids continuously conducted by the enemy.

“Sometimes the launch pads are completely empty. We detect Russian missiles flying in, but we can only watch helplessly because there is nothing left to intercept them,” he said.

Colonel Ignat also acknowledged the situation in February. “Some systems are still in a blank state, with no more bullets left, even though there are still attacks that need to be repelled,” he said at the time.

“The goalkeeper was standing in front of the goal, suddenly 10 balls flew at the same time and he of course couldn’t catch them all. The goalkeeper can only block the number of balls equal to the number of arms and legs he has, right?”, the Ukrainian official added.

Ukrainian military commanders must also be wary of the possibility of Russia attacking the launch pad, radar, operating crew and missile depot. “Ukraine cannot concentrate all its missiles in the same location or close to each other, because Russia will quickly detect and attack them,” Romanenko said.

Ukraine is trying to find supplies of Patriot to overcome the current shortage. Ukrainian Foreign Ministry spokesman Heorhii Tykhyi said on June 10 that the country had found a source of PAC-2/3 missiles that were about to expire and was negotiating to access them.

Kiev also seeks to develop the Freya domestic air defense system capable of dealing with ballistic missiles. Fire Point Company announced that it had successfully tested the FP-7.X ammunition for this complex, adding that the missile could be mass produced from August, depending on support from European partners.

However, it is unclear whether they can be as effective as the most modern PAC-3 MSE missiles donated by the US to Ukraine.