KYIV, Ukraine—Ukraine is running out of U.S.-made Patriot interceptor missiles, leaving its cities nearly defenseless against Russia’s escalating barrages of ballistic missiles.
What can Ukraine do about it?
It is pressing Western nations to donate more Patriot missiles faster from their stockpiles, but everyone is running low. The U.S.-Iran war has worsened the global shortage of interceptors. Production of new ones is painfully slow.
Moscow is exploiting the weakness in Kyiv’s air defenses as the Russian army struggles on the front lines. This week, Ukraine wasn’t able to shoot down any of the 28 ballistic missiles that Russia fired at the Kyiv area. The attacks are killing dozens of civilians.
“This is Russia’s last major advantage,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky told allies at the North Atlantic Treaty Organization summit in Ankara on Tuesday. “We are capable of doing everything else ourselves. But when it comes to air defense, we need our partners’ determination.”
President Trump said Wednesday said he would support giving Ukraine licenses to build Patriot interceptors on its own territory, something Kyiv has been asking for. However, turning U.S. political approval into the production of actual missiles could take years, leaving Ukrainian cities dangerously exposed.
Ukraine, painfully aware that Western help will take time to materialize, isn’t only waiting for its allies to act.
Here are six things Kyiv is trying to do to mitigate the Russian ballistic threat and limit the damage.
Be efficient with Patriots
Ukraine is working to use its scarce Patriots as efficiently as possible. It has built a multilayered air defense, in which different systems tackle different threats. The military saves its Patriot interceptors for ballistic missiles to avoid wasting them on long-range drones and cruise missiles, said Justin Bronk, senior research fellow at Royal United Services Institute, a defense and security think tank in London.
In contrast, the U.S. and its Gulf allies expended valuable Patriot interceptors on drones and cruise missiles, which can be shot down by other means, Bronk said.
In just 39 days of war against Iran, the U.S. fired up to 1,430 Patriot interceptors, according to an estimate by the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Gulf allies used up even more, analysts said.
The Patriot system typically uses up to three interceptors to destroy one ballistic missile, but Ukraine has been using just one, according to Valery Romanenko, a former Ukrainian air-defense officer and a researcher at Kyiv’s National Aviation University. That of course decreases the chances of an interception, he said.
“It is often necessary to rely on human operators, because automated systems can fire more missiles to destroy a single target—significantly more than just one or two,” said Yurii Ihnat, spokesman for the Ukrainian Air Force.
Shoot the arrow-maker, not the arrow
Ukraine’s own long-range air campaign, which has been pummeling Russian oil refineries, is also targeting Russian military industries that make key components for missiles.
Zelensky said on July 1 that Ukrainian forces had struck a missile-component plant in Russia’s Penza region, and in late June he reported a strike on a similar industrial plant in the Volgograd region, both deep inside Russia.
Ukraine is believed to be using its domestically produced FP-5 Flamingo cruise missiles for such strikes against well-protected targets such as military production sites. But it doesn’t yet have many of the Flamingos, said Fabian Hoffmann, a missile expert at the Norwegian Institute for Defense Studies in Oslo.
The long-range drones that Ukraine has been using successfully against Russian refineries carry a smaller payload, and lack the power to punch through the hardened shelters where missile production takes place, said Romanenko.
Destroying enemy missile production, or missile launchers, is difficult, as the U.S. and Israel discovered in their war against Iran—and as Russia is finding in its attempts to destroy Ukraine’s growing military industries.
Hide defense industries
Since the start of the war, Ukraine has spread its defense production around the country and even abroad. One company, Swarmer, hid its main facility in a suburban house. Ukrainian drone makers now produce in the U.K. and Germany.
Sometimes production is hidden underground—a lesson that the U.K. and Nazi Germany learned during their mutual bombing campaigns in World War II, when both sides produced war materiel in mines, tunnels and even a London subway station.
Sometimes, the solution is simple. “The best protection against ballistic missiles is concrete,” said Ihnat, the airforce spokesman.
Find alternatives to the Patriot
Zelensky is urging the U.S. to grant licenses so Ukraine can produce Patriots itself. But the U.S. has been reluctant to share the know-how with foreign countries. At the end of this year, European missile maker MBDA is set to start production of Patriot interceptors in Germany—but not the newest model.
A few other systems can intercept ballistic missiles, including the U.S.-made Thaad, British and French ship-based systems and various Israeli alternatives. But Ukraine either hasn’t been given access to them or they aren’t suited to its needs.
Ukraine has two versions of the Samp/T system, a French-Italian rival to the Patriot. But the system has performed poorly against Russian ballistic missiles. Ukraine could get a new, improved version of the Samp/T, but deliveries could take time.
Ukrainian defense company Fire Point is working on a domestically produced antiballistic missile system. Called the FP-7, it will undergo flight tests this summer, according to company founder Denys Shtilerman. But it isn’t clear when it will enter service.
Likewise, the cheap ballistic defense missiles being developed by Estonia’s Frankenburg Technologies and other startups are so far untested in battle and will take time to come to market.
Take shelter
Ordinary Ukrainians are adapting to the missile threat by fleeing underground. After more than four years of war, many people had become blasé about air raids. But the Patriot shortage is forcing them to heed the government’s warnings and seek shelter.
Tens of thousands of Kyiv residents have spent nights in the city’s subway during Russia’s recent missile barrages, turning stations into underground towns packed with yoga mats, camping chairs and tents.
“This is my first time in the metro,” Kyiv resident Inna Olefirenko said during an attack in June. Her daughter convinced her to go after an onslaught in May shook their building. “There’s no end in sight,” she said of the Russian strikes. “You start to think it can’t get any worse. But no. They show their true colors every single time.”
Hurt Russia until it stops
Ukraine can try to force Russia to accept a partial ceasefire, in which both countries desist from long-range airstrikes. Kyiv has floated the idea previously but Moscow rejected it.
Now, however, Ukraine’s long-range capabilities are growing rapidly, and its strikes on Russian refineries and other oil and gas infrastructure are creating mounting economic disruption—as well as bringing the war home to Russia’s population.
Kyiv’s broader strategy in the war is to halt Moscow’s army along the front line while causing more damage inside Russia, until the Kremlin agrees to an overall ceasefire. But a partial ceasefire, in which Russia stops bombarding cities and Ukraine stops burning down refineries, also remains an option.
So far, however, Russian President Vladimir Putin has shown no inclination to accept any kind of truce, instead repeating his goal of forcing capitulation terms on Ukraine. That aim appears increasingly out of touch with the military reality of a war that is going badly for Russia, despite its ability to kill civilians in Kyiv.
Write to Alistair MacDonald at Alistair.Macdonald@wsj.com, Anastasiia Malenko at anastasiia.malenko@wsj.com and Marcus Walker at Marcus.Walker@wsj.com
