Archive: https://archive.is/2025.03.04-120945/https://www.ft.com/content/b4393738-c7da-47ca-82db-99c2c052afec

A shortage of interceptor missiles for the five US-made Patriot systems in use by Ukraine would represent a major blow to the country’s defensive capabilities, just as Russia has been expanding its drone and missile strike campaign deep within Ukraine.

If the country’s military was forced to stop using the most sophisticated air defence system in its arsenal, “eventually, Ukraine would need to do a difficult prioritisation,” says Emil Kastehelmi, an analyst monitoring the war for the Finland-based Black Bird Group. “Do you defend an airfield, or a power plant, or a factory making weapons?”

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“We have no real substitute for the Himars” says Pavlo Narozhny, a Ukrainian military analyst and co-founder of Reactive Post, an organisation supporting Ukrainian artillery units.

The Himars launchers have also enabled Ukraine to use long-range Atacams missiles to hit targets in Russia, as far as 300km away. Narozhny said that Kyiv has UK and French Storm Shadow and Scalp long-range missiles, “but they aren’t the same, they’re much slower and easier to intercept”.

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While not part of the formal US support paused by Washington, the most immediately harmful move for frontline units in Ukraine would be a shutdown of Elon Musk’s Starlink system, a satellite-powered internet provider whose use has become ubiquitous among Ukrainian forces thanks to its speed and reliability.

“If Starlink is shut down, problems will start immediately,” Yehor Firsov, a former Ukrainian MP now serving in the military, wrote in late February. “Infantry in defensive dugouts, intelligence, drone and artillery crews, brigade and battalion headquarters . . . everyone uses Starlink.”