There are, theoretically, alternatives to the Patriots, but they either don’t measure up or Ukraine doesn’t have access to them.
Russia’s mass air attacks on Ukrainian cities have recently been carried out by a mix of drones, cruise missiles, and ballistic missiles. To shoot down ballistic missiles takes interceptors, mainly those launched from Patriot surface-to-air systems. Ukraine has enough Patriot systems but has far too few PAC-3 interceptors, and this is taking a toll.
Ukraine’s ability to shoot down Russian ballistic missiles has deteriorated in recent large-scale attacks, a sign that Kyiv is lacking US-made Patriot interceptors to defend against strikes.
Ukraine failed to intercept any of the 23 Iskander-M ballistic missiles or the six high-speed Zircon and Oniks missiles launched by Russia in an overnight strike from Sunday to Monday, according to a Ukrainian Air Force tally published on Telegram.
It had previously intercepted roughly one-third of the ballistic missiles fired in Russia’s large-scale air assaults, and sometimes even more.
Writing in the Wall Street Journal, Anastasiia Malenko and Alistair MacDonald detail data showing that Ukraine has shot down a massive preponderance of the long-range drones and cruise missiles fired into the country this year. But some 70 percent of ballistic missiles got through, a figure that largely reflects Ukraine’s dwindling interceptor reserves.
Manufacturing the highly sophisticated interceptors is complex and takes time. Lockheed Martin is gearing up production, but that takes time too. The stock of interceptors, which was low before the Iran war, is still lower now. If the war resumes in full force, it will shrink again. There is already a long waiting list for interceptors. There are some semi-workarounds, including buying PAC-2s (an older model not best suited to deal with ballistic missiles), but not enough of them are available either.
President Trump’s announcement at the NATO summit that he is in favor of allowing Ukraine to manufacture PAC-3s under license from Lockheed is good news. It signals awareness of the problem that Ukraine faces and is a welcome gesture of support. But setting up such an arrangement will take quite some time. It is not going to solve the problem posed today by Ukraine’s lack of interceptors. Moreover, as Gerry Dukes points out in a separate article for Bloomberg, there is a possibility that Trump may use the proposed licensing arrangements to deflect Ukrainian requests for immediate delivery of interceptors:
Trump suggested his offer of production may mean no new supplies of actual missiles are likely.
“This way you can’t complain that we’re not giving them enough,”
That may be too bleak a reading. Not supplying “enough” interceptors is not necessarily the same as supplying no interceptors.
Drones are far lower tech than PAC-3s, but given the success of its drone program, it is no surprise that Ukraine is examining what it can do for itself to fill the anti-ballistic gap.
Writing in another Wall Street Journal article, MacDonald, Malenko, and Marcus Walker discussed the steps that Kyiv is taking. The first, using its interceptors as efficiently as it can — which sounds like common sense, but, as it involves not using them when they could still be very helpful, can come with a heavy cost.
The second, as the WSJ’s writers explain, is to “shoot the arrow-maker, not the arrow,” or, to put it less colorfully, to hit the heavily protected facilities in which Russia produces its ballistic missiles. Ukraine’s Flamingo cruise missiles (drones do not pack enough punch to do serious damage to such facilities) have had some success in this area, but Ukraine does not have enough of them to make a real dent. Ukraine can do quite a bit to harden its own key plants against the effects of ballistic missile attacks. Concrete helps, and so does putting facilities underground or abroad — but those options are not available to defend city centers.
There are, theoretically, alternatives to the Patriots, but, as described in the WSJ report, they either don’t measure up or Ukraine doesn’t have access to them. It’s a sign of how Europe’s defense sector is evolving that, of the two other alternatives mentioned in the WSJ, one — the short-range FP-7 anti-ballistic missile — is being developed and tested by a Ukrainian company. The company, Fire Point, manufactures long-range drones and the Flamingos. Fire Point is also testing another anti-ballistic missile, the longer-range FP-9, which could reach Moscow. According to a Reuters report in April, Fire Point is in talks with unnamed European companies about a “new air defense system.” Some Gulf states are reportedly interested in buying its drones.
In another example of the different ways in which Putin and Trump are forcing a transformation of the European defense sector, Frankenburg, an early-stage company from Estonia, a NATO frontline state, has opened its first missile production factory, which is in Latvia. Frankenburg will emphasize localized production, scalability, and affordability. To date, it has developed anti-drone missiles, but now, according to Bloomberg, it is looking to raise €100 million to build an anti-ballistic system.
But for now, the anti-ballistic missile gap remains. An interesting suggestion raised in the WSJ report is that, even if a ceasefire is beyond reach, Ukraine might be able to use its increasingly effective long-range drone capabilities as leverage to secure a partial ceasefire “in which Russia stops bombarding cities and Ukraine stops burning down refineries.”
Putin is clearly not particularly concerned about the loss of Russian life, but if he sees Ukrainian long-range strikes as a political danger, that might lead him to consider such a deal. That is, however, a big if.