Kyiv Left Without Patriot Missiles: 21 Dead
Global shortage of expensive interceptors forces Ukraine to change strategy, instead of targeting missiles, it will aim for the launchers themselves.
Global shortage of expensive interceptors forces Ukraine to change strategy, instead of targeting missiles, it will aim for the launchers themselves.
Ukraine's air defense suffered its darkest day since the start of the invasion on Tuesday. In a Russian attack on Kyiv that killed 21 people, not a single enemy missile was shot down for the first time. The reason is simple and brutal: Ukrainian forces have run out of interceptors for the American Patriot system, the only weapon capable of stopping Russian ballistic missiles.
President Volodymyr Zelensky had been warning about this scenario for weeks, and now it has become a reality. The situation was further exacerbated by Russia's decision to use ballistic missiles like the Iskander and North Korean KN-23s, purchased from Pyongyang, in large numbers. Moscow, aware of Ukraine's helplessness, has ramped up production and often directs them at civilian targets, including residential buildings.
A potential solution emerged a few weeks ago when US President Donald Trump promised Ukraine a license to produce the expensive Patriot missiles domestically. This option would reduce dependence on American factories in the long run. However, Trump quickly changed his mind and dismissed the possibility, showing, as El Mundo reports, "much more loyalty to Vladimir Putin" over the past two years.
Even if the license had been granted, the problem would not have been solved immediately. Ukraine would first need access to the complex supply chain of components and learn how to assemble them, a lengthy process.
The shortage of these interceptors perfectly illustrates why modern air defense is both an engineering and geopolitical challenge. Each Patriot battery is a complex ecosystem: radar, control station, generators, and launch vehicles with up to 16 missiles, totaling between 8 and 12 heavy vehicles. Operator training takes from six months to a year.
However, the core of the problem lies in production. One advanced PAC-3 missile costs between $3 and $4 million, and Lockheed Martin and Raytheon produce only about 620 of them annually. It is estimated that Ukraine needs as many as 1,500 per year, although Zelensky, according to El Mundo, would settle for 300 to protect cities during the winter.
Additional pressure on already limited stockpiles has come from the war against Iran launched by the US and Israel, which has drained the arsenals of Gulf states and Washington itself. It is estimated that the US military has a shamefully small number left for the defense of its own bases and territory, about 800 missiles. The demand from Ukraine, Israel, European, and Gulf countries far outstrips supply.
Faced with the impossibility of shooting down Russian missiles, Ukraine is forced to change its strategy. The new focus will be on destroying Iskander launchers on the ground and Russian weapons factories, although it is also limited in this by its own production capacities for missiles like the "Flaming" and satellite intelligence for locating targets.
Dara Massicot, an analyst at the Carnegie think tank, explicitly supports such a shift. "The Russians will not stop their attacks until they are stopped or deterred. Yes, I mean attacks on missile launchers. Destroying Iskander launchers is a proportional operational act and is very far from nuclear escalation," she told El Mundo.
German military affairs analyst Nico Lange warns of the brutal consequences of the current weakness. "The lack of defense against Russian ballistic missiles remains Ukraine's weakness. Putin is brutally exploiting this and causing more and more civilian casualties. This will not turn the war around for Russia. Europe cannot simply continue to watch the constant killing of civilians with folded arms," Lange said.
