Kyiv Alarm Grows Over Russian Retaliatory Air Strikes; Zelensky Pushes for More Patriot Missiles
Alarm is growing in Kyiv over Russian retaliatory air strikes as President Volodymyr Zelensky seeks more Patriot missiles from the United States. Ukrainian air defences shot down 132 of 156 drones launched overnight, but Russian strikes are increasingly testing the Patriot interceptor stockpile, which was significantly drawn down by the US redirect of Patriot interceptors to the Iran theatre during the war. Zelensky has framed the appeal to the US as “eliminate Putin’s last advantage”. The Romania drone strike is now part of the NATO-side political environment Zelensky is targeting.
The Patriot interceptor question is now binding on the Ukraine air-defence picture. Each Patriot PAC-3 MSE interceptor costs roughly $4 million and is produced at a constrained rate of around 600 per year industry-wide. The US redirect to the Iran theatre during the war removed several batteries from the Ukraine pipeline. If the Iran deal holds, NATO-side Patriot replenishment to Ukraine could resume in volume; if it collapses, Ukraine faces a sustained gap. Russian Geran-2 attack drones, NIM Mu 1.7-1.8 Iranian-derived but mass-produced in Russia, are now produced at a rate of around 5,000 per month. The IRIS-T and NASAMS systems have absorbed some of the load, but Patriot remains the only system that intercepts ballistic missile threats reliably.