With a new wave of Russian airstrikes this week that slammed into the capital and more than a dozen other cities, Western officials are under increasing pressure to speed the delivery of missiles, launchers and other sophisticated air defense systems to help protect Ukraine.
Some are already on the way. A first shipment of high-tech, heat-seeking missiles from Germany — so new that even Berlin’s forces have not deployed them yet — was delivered Tuesday. France, the Netherlands and Spain pledged this week to send more air defense missiles too. And the United States said it would hasten delivery of two missile launchers, the type that have protected Washington since 2005.
Those defense systems fire missiles from mobile launchers to intercept incoming aircraft, missiles, rockets or other projectiles, and are crucial to protecting Ukraine in ways that its relatively small and struggling air force cannot. Ukraine has air defense systems of its own, including old Soviet-era weapons, but it is using up ammunition at a great rate, and both Kyiv and its Western allies say it needs much more.
“We will stand by Ukraine for as long as it takes, we will step up our support, and in particular, we will provide more air defense systems to Ukraine,” said Jens Stoltenberg, secretary general of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, said in Brussels.
Here is a look at what Ukraine is facing.
Is Russia running out of its precision-guided missiles?
“This is the $64,000 question,” according to Max Bergmann, a former American diplomat and expert on European and Russian security at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. There have been several signs that Russia is running low on precision-guided weapons, he said, and “it’s not clear that they have huge reserves.” Among the clues: Russia has hit targets on the ground in Ukraine with missiles and rockets that were designed to destroy aircraft or ships. It has also bought a supply of “kamikaze” drones from Iran.
There has not been any definitive evidence presented publicly that Russia is running out of its best aerial weapons. But if it were, it would at least make it harder for Russian troops to hit cities like the capital, Kyiv, far from the front lines.
American and Western officials have refused to release specific estimates of how many precision-guided missiles Russia was believed to have at the start of the war. But even before this week’s airstrikes, a senior Ukrainian intelligence official, Vadym Skibitsky, said that Russia had depleted about 65 percent of its missile stockpile, and likely had only about 20 percent left of its supply of Iskander ballistic missiles that have been one of Moscow’s weapons of choice.
Mr. Bergmann said Russia will almost certainly manufacture more missiles to replenish its supply, but American sanctions have limited imports of microchips and other parts needed in production. Moscow may also turn to its allies for arms.
“No matter what, we have to assume that Russia will still have the capacity to hit deep inside Ukraine,” Mr. Bergmann said.
Why is Russia launching missiles from afar, rather than sending warplanes?
The strikes Monday were launched by Russian ships, planes and ground forces in places safely beyond the reach of Ukraine’s air defenses, sometimes from hundreds of miles away from their targets.
But Russia appears reluctant to deploy its air force in large numbers over Ukraine, whose air defenses have proved more capable — and more elusive — than Moscow apparently expected. Early in the war, many analysts predicted that Russia would quickly knock out Ukraine’s antiaircraft and antimissile systems, allowing it to dominate Ukrainian skies.
They were wrong.
Ukraine began the war with Russian- and Soviet-designed antiaircraft and antimissile systems, including versions of the S-300 rockets, and has received more of them from other Eastern European countries during the war. Western countries have also supplied Ukraine with some of their systems, including shoulder-fired missiles that are especially effective against low-flying aircraft.
Ukrainian forces have shot down a number of Russian aircraft, and they said that this week they destroyed more than half of the cruise missiles and drones Russia had launched.
“I think it’s impressive,” Mr. Bergmann said.
Even as it pleads with the West for more air defenses, he said, Ukraine has been adept at “MacGyvering” — refashioning equipment it already has on hand.
“These complexes are old and Soviet, morally and physically worn out,” said Yuri Ignat, the spokesperson for Ukraine’s Air Force, in a recent interview. “But they are working thanks to our military engineers.”
Other military experts agreed that Ukraine’s record of shooting down missiles has been good, especially given the age and sparsity of Ukraine’s equipment.
The upshot: missile barrages from afar might remain a key part of Russia’s strategy — for as long as they are available.
So then what kinds of air defenses does Ukraine need?
In an interview last month with RBK-Ukraina, a Ukrainian news outlet, Mr. Ignat explained that Ukrainian air defenses are capable of destroying missiles traveling at up to 560 miles per hour, below the speed of sound. Cruise missiles often operate below that threshold, but modern ones can accelerate to supersonic speed for part of their flight path.
Any missile that moves much faster or flies very high — like ballistic missiles — is far harder to hit, Mr. Ignat said. Ukraine has tried to replenish its stocks of older air-defense systems like the S-300 rockets from former Soviet allies, but the supply is limited.
“That is why we need to have the modern complexes that our Western partners will soon provide,” he said. “The manufacturers tell us that these complexes can even hit Iskanders.”
President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine has repeatedly asked for the American-made Patriot missile system, which can shoot down ballistic missiles and supersonic aircraft, and has a relatively long range and can reach high altitudes.
But so far the United States has not agreed to send Patriot systems to Ukraine, because the current stockpile is already being used to deter other threats — not only from Russia but also China, North Korea and Iran.
Additionally, Ukrainian forces would need to be trained to use them, and more air defenses means more people to crew them, far from the front lines. In a resource-intensive war, defending critical infrastructure and cities begins to become its own front, especially if Russia continues these types of attacks.
What’s taking so long to get Ukraine what it needs?
This largely comes down to a tight supply of existing air defenses that are already being used by other allies, and a manufacturing industry in the United States and Europe that had largely turned to making other weapons during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Manufacturers have struggled to keep up with a spike in demand after Russia invaded in February.
The United States, for example, has committed to sending eight advanced missile defense systems to Ukraine. But only two will be ready to ship in coming weeks — the other six are still in production, and will not be completed for at least another year.
“We are constantly assessing what their needs are, pairing them with countries that have the assets that they need and looking for ways to get those assets into the hands of military forces inside Ukraine as fast as humanly possible,” Julianne Smith, the American ambassador to NATO, told reporters this week.
NATO held high-level meetings this week in Brussels to discuss ramping up defense manufacturing and sharing supplies to aid Ukraine without weakening others. That resulted on Thursday in an agreement among 15 European states to create a common air defense and missile system with equipment that is easily or cheaply obtained and is compatible across national boundaries.
The new agreement, dubbed the “European Sky Shield Initiative,” would not include Ukraine. But it could help military planners in the participating states decide whether they could risk giving their own air defenses to Ukraine sooner, knowing that newer reinforcements were on the way, said Douglas Barrie, an expert at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London.
“It is robbing Peter to pay Paul in a way, but it is Paul who faces the risk today,” Mr. Barrie said.
Michael Schwirtz contributed reporting from Kyiv, Ukraine.
