Ballistic missiles are accounting for a growing share of Russia’s increasingly deadly attacks on Ukrainian cities, as Moscow unleashes a new bombing strategy seeking to exploit a global shortage of US-made Patriot air defense systems. For the first time, concentrated Russian bombardments aimed at one primary target are featuring dozens of ballistic missiles, while also involving hundreds of drones and other missile types in a bid to overwhelm Ukrainian defenses.
If current trends continue, Russia is on track to launch more than a thousand ballistic missiles this year, a nearly fifteenfold increase compared to 2023. This comes as Ukrainian air defense units continue to grapple with dangerously low stocks of Patriot PAC-3 interceptor missiles, the only countermeasure that has consistently proven effective against Russian ballistic threats.
Described by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy as Russia’s “last major advantage on the battlefield,” ballistic missiles fly at much faster speeds and higher altitudes than other missiles and drones, making them significantly more difficult to intercept. Ukraine now regularly shoots down roughly 90 percent of drones and 80 percent of cruise missiles, but less than one-third of ballistic missiles.
The situation is only getting worse. During the first week of July, Ukraine’s air defenses intercepted just four of 49 incoming ballistic missiles, as two large-scale Russian attacks on the Kyiv region killed at least 57 civilians and injured hundreds more.
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According to public reporting, Kyiv has received at least ten Patriot batteries and more than six hundred advanced interceptors since April 2023. Over the past year, approximately 70 percent of Ukraine’s Patriot interceptor deliveries have come via NATO’s Prioritized Ukraine Requirements List (PURL) mechanism, which enables partners to buy US equipment on Ukraine’s behalf. The pace and volume of these deliveries have boosted Ukraine’s defenses, but have proved insufficient to meet the country’s air defense needs.
To help close the gap, Ukrainian Defense Minister Mykhailo Fedorov recently announced that his government has begun pursuing direct contracts for the purchase of PAC-3 interceptors with EU funds, while also acquiring older variants from European stockpiles. In parallel, Kyiv is in talks with countries that have agreed to defer their place in the production queue to allow for earlier deliveries to Ukraine.
It is not only a question about financing or priority delivery. Even if Ukraine were to receive all 620 Patriot interceptor missiles produced by Lockheed Martin last year, that would still fall far short of the estimated 2000 interceptors required per year to protect key civilian, energy, and military targets across the country.
The US-Israeli war in Iran has further exacerbated the supply crisis by reportedly consuming as many as 1430 Patriot munitions in just 39 days. Even with plans to triple production in the coming years, US allies who order new systems are currently facing delivery timelines of up to seven years.
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One potential remedy proposed by Ukraine is the expansion of joint production of Patriot interceptor missiles on European soil. In a positive first step, Washington recently granted preliminary approval to produce PAC-3 missiles in Poland. US President Donald Trump also said after the recent G7 summit that he was open to the idea of American companies manufacturing under license in Ukraine.
In practice, however, establishing new production lines is no easy task. Each PAC-3 missile currently takes more than two years to build, relying on a complex supply chain of more than four hundred companies. Manufacturing overseas also presents its own legal and security challenges.
In search of other options, Ukraine has assembled a coalition of thirteen countries to accelerate the development of homegrown missile defense capabilities in Europe. At present, the only existing alternative to the Patriot system is the French-Italian SAMP/T, which also faces limited production capacity and is unable in its current version to engage Russian ballistics. However, that could change as Ukraine is set to test the next generation SAMP/T NG system later this year.
Meanwhile, Ukraine’s FirePoint and Estonia’s Frankenburg Technologies are each rushing to build their own lower cost, mass-produced interceptors. However, experts are skeptical that these systems would be able to replace the Patriot anytime soon, which remains the gold standard in terms of anti-ballistic air defense systems.
Another innovative tool already in use is the Ukrainian-made Lima electronic warfare system, designed to jam and spoof satellite navigation signals by fooling missiles into thinking they are in Peru. As a result, incoming ballistics veer off course and miss their intended target, although diverted missiles can still cause significant damage, especially if they crash in densely populated areas.
As Russia expands its ballistic arsenal, Ukraine is also increasingly seeking to “shoot the archer, not the arrow” by targeting missile production at its source. Over the past month, Ukrainian forces have launched a record number of long-range strikes on military-industrial targets deep inside Russia. This has included attacks on a semiconductor plant in Voronezh, a ballistic launcher hub in Volgograd, and a major factory that produces missile sensors in Penza.
There is no magic solution to the problem of ballistic missile defense. But as Ukraine prepares for another difficult winter, a combination of efforts to defend against Russian ballistic missiles can help protect civilian life, critical infrastructure, and industrial production, bringing the country one step closer to peace.
Karlis Kuskevics is a policy fellow at the Ukrainian National Information Service (UNIS), the public affairs bureau of the Ukrainian Congress Committee of America (UCCA). He is also a former Young Global Professional at the Atlantic Council’s Transatlantic Security Initiative.
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The views expressed in UkraineAlert are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Atlantic Council, its staff, or its supporters.
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