Ukraine says it ran out of anti-air missiles during a Russian missile strike on a power station.

 

File photo of an Ukrainian  AN/TWQ-1 Avenger. Reuters.

Ukraine says it ran out of anti-air missiles during a Russian missile attack on a power station. Reuters. The attack last week destroyed a major power station in Kiev. President Zelensky said Russia had fired 11 missiles at the power station and Ukraine was able to intercept 7 of them but did not have enough missiles to destroy the last 4. Zelensky also warned that Ukraine could be out of missiles entirely soon. Russia has been attacking Ukraine's non-nuclear electrical plants and have 7 gigawatts worth of power generation. Russia said the attacks were meant to degrade Ukraine's ability to fight and in response to Ukrainian attacks on Russia. Ukraine says they need 25 Patriot missile systems to properly defend their airspace, though allies have been reluctant to send any more. 

My Comment:

For anyone paying attention to the war, the fact that Ukraine is running out of air defenses is not surprising. Indeed, Ukraine has had many of their Patriot launches destroyed along with other air defenses and are now basically out to the point where Russia is now able to use their air weapons fairly freely. 

What is different is that Zelensky and Ukraine is admitting this so freely. I know why they are doing so, they want more missiles and if they admit they are in trouble they might convince people to send them to Ukraine. 

But the problem is that I doubt there are all that many Patriot missiles left in the world. Indeed, instead of the 25 they are demanding, they are getting one, from Germany. One missile system is a joke and won't be able to do much of anything to destroy any Russian missiles and could only defend a small section of Ukraine's territory. 

And things are going to be a lot worse after the Iranian strike on Israel. That attack ended up using a huge amount of anti-air missiles. Many of those were of Israeli origin, but Jordan and Saudi Arabia used their weapons as well and that means the demand from these weapons is going to be even higher. And I am guessing that American Patriots that might have been given to Israel if the military assistance bill passed will now go to Israel instead. 

Without more weapons what does this mean for Ukraine? It means that they are going to have to shepherd their remaining weapons. They are going to have to leave their front lines undefended and try to concentrate their remaining weapons on critical infrastructure and their command and control network. 

That means that Russia's devastating KAB weapons, glide bombs similar to American J-DAM's, will continue to pulverize the front lines. Without air defenses, Russia can send KAB strikes on Ukrainian positions and destroy them easily. Not only is that hugely demoralizing to Ukrainian fighters, it's going to make gaps in Ukraine's lines that Russia can pour through. Not that the air defenses have been that effective anyways, Russia has figured out how to counter Patriot missile batteries and there is a reason why Ukraine has such a need, they brought their systems closer to the front lines and they lost many of them.  

Of course the other major problem is that Ukraine is now suffering under Russia's attacks on their electricity. Most of Ukraine's non-nuclear plants have been hit, if not destroyed and their power generation is limited. Most of their power now comes from their nuclear plants, which haven't been hit for obvious reasons, and whatever they can buy from Europe. 

This will obviously make just about everything in the world more difficult for Ukraine. Even the power situation will get worse even with their surviving plants not being able to keep up with demand. This will cause outages and transformer explosions. Whatever industrial production Ukraine still has will stop and the people are going to be under extreme pressure. Russia should have done this during Winter to increase the hardship and put pressure on the Ukrainian government but supposedly Putin didn't do it for humanitarian reasons. 

The war probably won't last much longer with Russian air superiority. Ukraine isn't likely to last much longer with their power out and their front line troops getting wiped out. And all that is before Russia launches their supposed summer offensive... Though a quick collapse is unlikely, I do think we will start to see Russia advance their front lines at a higher pace.