WASHINGTON — Ukraine has depleted its stockpile of interceptors for its US Patriot air defense system — in a dangerous development as Russia continues to pound it with brutal ballistic missile attacks, according to a report.
The advanced Patriot interceptors are Ukraine’s primary way to take down Russian ballistic missiles, which are roughly the size of a big-rig truck.
The West has grappled with a shortage of Patriot interceptors for months following the protracted wars involving Ukraine, Israel and the Persian Gulf.
“Almost all the ballistic missiles from the last strike were not intercepted due to lack of the (interceptor) missiles,” a source familiar with the shortage told CNN.
During that spate of attacks, Russia hit a Ukrainian power plant and also killed four people in Kyiv — despite President Trump’s announcement of an energy cease-fire between the two countries.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has publicly pleaded for the licenses needed to manufacture the Patriot interceptors within Ukraine.
Last month, Zelensky claimed that Trump gave the green light for Ukraine to get those licenses. But Trump was coy about whether that was the case, and so far, it doesn’t appear that the license deal came through, according to CNN.
Ukraine is widely believed to have been able to match and even surpass Russia on drone warfare, but has struggled to defend against the Kremlin’s ballistic missile attacks.
This is likely not the first time Ukraine is believed to have run out of Patriot interceptors during the course of the bloody war.
Patriot missiles, which are part of America’s “exquisite munition” arsenal, can take about two years to produce, though the Trump administration is scrambling to speed up production.
Although the US and Europe are running low on Patriot interceptors, several allies, including South Korea, are sitting on a stockpile of other missile defense systems.
Relations between Seoul and Kyiv have soured over recent weeks.
Zelensky met with the UK Prime Minister this week, and now London is giving Ukraine additional long-range Storm Shadow cruise missiles to hit targets in Russia, Bloomberg reported.
Meanwhile, tensions between Zelensky and Trump have exploded following the president’s call with Russian tyrant Vladimir Putin last week.
Trump announced a diesel deal with Russia that prompted fury from Zelensky, who blasted it as a “betrayal.” Then Trump called for Ukraine to replace Zelensky as its leader.
On Wednesday, Ukraine claimed its access to Starshield, a military offshoot of Elon Musk’s Starlink satellite internet system, was throttled for its drones traveling at high speeds, thwarting several planned attacks against Russian forces.
Musk and the Trump administration pointed fingers at each other over the throttling, but Ukraine has since said that its access was restored.
Ukraine also claimed that the US neglected to give it a heads-up about Russian ballistic missile attacks, despite having done so repeatedly in the past.
“If you’re in the middle, you have to stay in the middle, not on the wrong side,” Zelensky vented to “Piers Morgan Uncensored” about Trump.
“I think Trump’s advisers are wrong. I don’t know who is pushing him to the wrong side. This is not the right side of history.”
