What the halt in US weapon supplies means for Ukraine

Already under assault from radar-evading Russian ballistics, the vaunted Patriot system now faces additional pressure.

Ukrainian rescuers work at the bottom of a residential building, heavily damaged following a strike in Kyiv on June 23. Picture: AFP

The Trump administration’s withholding of critical Patriot interceptor missiles and other weapons from Ukraine is a body blow to the embattled country’s efforts to withstand Russia’s mounting and increasingly deadly aerial assaults.

Even before the decision, Kyiv was struggling to counter Russian technology, tactics and troop numbers. Russia is already deploying manoeuverable ballistic missiles, able to avoid the vaunted Patriot air-defence system’s radar, and launching record numbers of drones to bombard Ukraine every two or three nights. A halt in the supply of interceptors from the US will heap further pressure on Ukraine.

The US said Tuesday it had stopped deliveries of lethal aid to Ukraine to beef-up Pentagon stocks. The Patriot missile is one of the most sought-after pieces of military tech, as wars in Ukraine and the Middle East sap supplies and its makers struggle to manufacture enough of them to fully replenish stockpiles. Lockheed Martin makes around 550 interceptors a year, which it could sell to the US and the 18 other countries that use Patriot systems.

The Pentagon didn’t shut the door to future aid to Ukraine, saying that it would provide President Trump with options to continue military aid to Ukraine that are consistent with his goal of ending the war.

The Ukrainian air defence fires at Russian drones during a night strike on Kyiv on June 23. Picture: AFP

For Ukraine, there are few alternatives. European allies are also struggling to increase missile production, underscoring how the West’s defence industry is struggling to increase production to the levels that would be required by attritional, high-intensity warfare.

“Is that bad news for Kyiv? Obviously, as it reduces the threat to the Russian air force,” said Douglas Barrie, a specialist in military aerospace at the International Institute for Strategic Studies.

Barrie said that the US reducing its supplies of interceptors was inevitable given their scarcity.

“Western defence ministries and governments are having to talk about resilience and part of that is manufacturing depth in terms of what they can produce,” he said.

Kyiv has consistently placed air defences, in particular their ammunition, at the top of wish lists provided to Western backers. While European and domestically made equipment has proved effective at knocking out Russia’s long-range Shahed drones and cruise missiles, the Patriot is its only defence against ballistic missiles.

On Tuesday, US shipments that were already in Poland were halted, including more than two dozen of the Patriot’s PAC-3 missiles, more than two dozen Stinger air-defence systems, Hellfire air-to-ground missiles and more than 90 AIM air-to-air missiles, among other systems, according to administration and congressional officials.

Ukraine has been fending off an increasingly brutal air-raid campaign from Russia, which has launched a record amount of attack drones in June, interspersing them with cruise and ballistic missiles, according to data analysed by the Center for Information Resilience, a UK-based open-source investigations organisation.

Russia’s latest tactic has been to launch many drones and missiles in a single attack to overwhelm Ukrainian air defences.

A United States launcher of a Patriot air-defence system. Photo: Corporal Madhur Chitnis/ADF

One such bombardment last weekend involved 477 drones, 46 cruise and 11 ballistic missiles in a barrage targeting Ukraine’s western region. Only one ballistic missile was intercepted, according to Ukraine’s air force.

Russia has launched 20,100 drones so far this year, compared with 2,315 for the same period in 2024, according to data analysed by CIR and The Wall Street Journal. But, the number of complex cruise and ballistic missiles it has fired so far this year is around half the amount it used in the first half of 2024.

For much of the war, the Patriot could shoot down ballistic and hypersonic missiles with ease. When they first arrived in Ukraine in spring 2023, residents of the capital cheered as they watched them defend against Russian aerial attacks. In recent months, more manoeuverable ballistic missiles have been able to avoid its radar, a Ukrainian official said.

The Patriot’s radar doesn’t cover a full 360-degree arc and its missile canisters are angled, leaving a blind spot that adversaries can exploit. While the US would have enough Patriot batteries to provide greater cover, other countries don’t have the same numbers.

The Patriot’s new radar — known as the Lower Tier Air and Missile Defense Sensor — gives it all around coverage, but a US Army spokesman said it was being tested and wouldn’t be fielded in operational units until the turn of the decade.

Russia’s Iskander 9M723 missiles are capable of manoeuvring midflight, analysts say. But Russia is more likely working out the Patriot radar systems’ coverage and firing to get behind that, said Barrie.

RTX, which manufactures most of the Patriot’s parts, declined to comment on the situation in Ukraine but said the company continuously updates the system based on real-world engagements.

A Patriot air missile system is fired during a live fire exercise in 2023. Picture: Eloisa Lopez

So far, Ukrainian interceptions of Russian ballistic missiles doesn’t appear to be markedly down, according to the data analysed by the Journal and CIR. Interception rates this year range from 48 per cent in June to 3.4 per cent in March.

A more pressing problem for Ukraine will now be a lack of missiles.

US officials have previously raised concerns about the availability of the Patriot’s interceptor missiles, given huge demand for them.

“It keeps me awake at night,” Doug Bush, the Army’s assistant secretary for acquisition, logistics and technology under the Biden administration, said last year.

US forces used Patriots to defend its base in Qatar against an Iranian strike last month, in what the Pentagon described as the largest Patriot engagement in US history.

Lockheed Martin will soon be able to produce 600 interceptors a year, said Tim Cahill, who runs the company’s missiles business. The company is also looking to set up production in Europe. Missiles such as the Patriot’s typically take over a year to produce.

“The waiting times are longer than we would like them to be,” Cahill said.

Wall Street Journal