NATO defense ministers gathering in Brussels on Wednesday will focus on how to provide Ukraine with more air defense systems to protect its civilians and critical infrastructure, a Ukrainian government official and US diplomat have said.
The NATO meeting comes two days after Russia launched its most intense air assault against Ukraine since it invaded in February, killing at least 19 civilians and hitting energy facilities across the country.
President Volodymyr Zelensky has sought to highlight Ukraine’s success in intercepting Russian missiles, saying more than half of the missiles and drones launched at Ukraine in a second wave of strikes on Tuesday were brought down. And given the success, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg on Tuesday underlined the need to supply more air defense systems to Kyiv, saying they “are making a difference.”
While Ukraine’s interception success rate has significantly risen over the course of the war, the country’s sheer size and the required rate of missile consumption would mean that it will “continue to take damage and suffer casualties” from such strikes “for the foreseeable future,” said Justin Bronk, a military expert with the London-based Royal United Services Institute (RUSI).
However, Bronk also noted that Moscow “does not have the ammunition reserves required to sustain heavy barrages of cruise and ballistic missiles such as those seen on Monday over the medium term.”
