In fits and starts in recent months, Ukraine’s allies have finally responded to Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenky’s increasingly urgent pleas for more long-range air defense systems.
Now a shortage of missiles, not launchers and their supporting radars, is about to become Ukraine’s biggest air defense problem.
In April, Germany pledged a third Patriot battery. Two months later in June, Italy pledged a SAMP/T battery—its second. And at the NATO summit in Washington, D.C. this week, alliance leaders including U.S. Pres. Joe Biden confirmed the United States and Romania would donate additional Patriot batteries—respectively, their second and first. Meanwhile, The Netherlands has offered up enough launchers for Ukraine to form a seventh Patriot battery.
“The United States and our allies and partners remain committed to providing Ukraine with additional air defense capabilities to defend itself against Russia’s continued aggression,” the Pentagon stated.
Once all the newly promised systems arrive, the Ukrainian air force should have at least nine of the best Western-made air defense batteries: seven Patriots and two SAMP/Ts. The air force also has around a dozen ex-Soviet batteries—S-300s, mostly, but also at least one S-200.
In theory, it’s just enough batteries to protect all of Ukraine. In practice, the Ukrainians don’t have nearly enough missiles to keep the batteries in action around the clock.
The S-200 ranges 190 miles. The Patriots and SAMP/Ts—as far as 90 miles. The best S-300s can hit targets 75 miles away. While the Ukrainian air force and army also operate hundreds of shorter-range air defense systems, it’s these longer-range air defenses that represent Ukraine’s best defense against nearly daily Russian missile raids.
Those raids are escalating. Between March and June, the Russians fired 446 missiles at Ukrainian cities—dozens more than they fired over the same period last year. A cruise missile strike on Kyiv on June 8 damaged a children’s hospital, killing two adults and injuring 16 people, including seven children.
Assuming the Ukrainian air force deploys its best Western-made air defenses to safeguard its biggest cities, keeps the S-200 where it apparently is—in the south, where it can threaten Russian air force jets over the Black Sea—and doles out the S-300s to cover the front line as well as smaller cities, nearly all of Ukraine’s 233,000 square miles and 38 million people should soon be under the protection of at least one long-range air defense battery.
Yes, the nine Western-made batteries—seven Patriots and two SAMP/Ts—are well short of the 25 Patriot batteries or equivalents that Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky has asked for. And the Ukrainians will need extra batteries to replace combat losses, of course.
But the recent NATO pledges go a long way toward building the basic air-defense architecture Ukraine needs to fend off Russian raids and secure its population, industry and energy infrastructure.
What that architecture lacks is an adequate supply of missiles. Ukraine’s allies have spent billions of dollars on missiles for the Ukrainian air defense batteries, but the supply almost certainly falls well short of the need.
Consider how busy Ukraine’s first Patriot battery was just in the first few weeks of operation last year. The German-donated battery arrived in Ukraine in May 2023, shot down its first Russian missile around May 11 and then, over the next six weeks, downed another 19 missiles—plus six attack drones, one surveillance drone, three helicopters and three fighter-bombers.
That’s five kills a week for one battery. Assuming some missiles miss—say, half—a single Ukrainian Patriot battery could fire 10 missiles a week without breaking a sweat. Ukraine is about to have eight more batteries in the same class as that initial German Patriot. They could conceivably fire 80 missiles a week—or nearly 500 a year—and only shoot down slightly more than a fifth of the incoming Russian missiles.
Guess how many Patriot missiles U.S. defense firm Lockheed Martin produces every year. That’s right: 500 as of December. Ukraine’s allies can send older missiles from their own stockpiles, but it’s the policy of many of them—the United States, in particular—to buy a new missile for every old missile it gives away.
Given the total absence of any slack in the supply of Patriot missiles, it should come as no surprise that the Biden administration has put in place a new policy: from now on, all newly built Patriot missiles go straight to Ukraine instead of any other customers.
“We’re going to re-prioritize the deliveries of these exports, so that those missiles rolling off the production line will now be provided to Ukraine,” White House national security communications adviser John Kirby told reporters late last month.
Between Patriot missiles and missiles for SAMP/Ts, the United States and its European allies can produce barely enough missiles to keep Ukraine’s air defense batters in action at the current firing rate.
But those batteries are already firing far too infrequently to shoot down all the incoming Russian missiles. To have a shot at hitting all the Russian munitions, the Ukrainians might need more than 2,000 long-range air defense missiles every year. Potentially four times as many as they’re currently getting.
Sources:
1. U.S. Defense Department: https://www.defense.gov/News/Releases/Release/Article/3835746/biden-administration-announces-additional-security-assistance-for-ukraine/
2. Oryx: https://www.oryxspioenkop.com/2022/04/answering-call-heavy-weaponry-supplied.html
3. Volodymyr Zelensky: https://x.com/tweet4Anna_NAFO/status/1776686029241450682
4. Swiss Info: https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/foreign-affairs/type-of-russian-missile-that-struck-kyiv-childrens-hospital-uses-swiss-components/83428653
5. Defense News: https://www.defensenews.com/land/2024/04/09/how-companies-plan-to-ramp-up-production-of-patriot-missiles/
6. CBS News: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/ukraine-air-defense-interceptor-patriot-missile/
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