Ukraine urges more air‑defense systems as Russia increases missile and drone strikes, panelists say

Major General Boris Kremenitsky, defense attache at Ukraine’s embassy in Washington, told a public briefing hosted by the U.S. Helsinki Commission that Ukraine needs substantially more air‑defense capability to protect cities and critical infrastructure as Russia steps up long‑range strikes and one‑way attack drones.

"Since this war started 3 and a half years ago, we were saying that priority for Ukraine is air defense, and we were asking our partners to support us in closing Ukrainian sky," Major General Boris Kremenitsky said during the panel. He described rising nightly salvos of missiles and waves of strike drones and warned that Russia has increased warhead sizes and refined drone designs to evade defenses.

The concern is not limited to quantities. Dara Masako, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, described qualitative changes in Russian strikes that make interception more difficult. "They are structured to arrive on target within minutes of one another in an attempt to saturate the defenders," Masako said, citing new flight paths, penetration aids and combinations of cruise, ballistic and loitering munitions.

Why this matters

Panelists documented a sharp increase in the scale and variety of attacks that threaten Ukrainian civilians, emergency responders and energy and health infrastructure. Kremenitsky and the experts said Ukraine’s multilayered, mobile and electronic‑warfare defenses have reduced but not eliminated the risk; reliance on existing Western systems is constrained by production and stock limits. John Hardy, deputy director of the Russia program at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, said that beyond intercepting incoming munitions, Ukraine also needs greater offensive reach to "hit the proverbial archer as well as the factories that make the arrows."

Key details

- Panelists cited recent monthly figures and single‑night strikes with hundreds of drones and dozens of missiles, and Kremenitsky said July drone totals had climbed into the thousands (transcript figures included 5,635 in July and 5,230 in June). The general also cited single nights above 700 drones and repeated multi‑wave attacks.

- Kremenitsky described changes in Russian tactics: concentrating strikes on a few cities, flying drones at altitudes beyond small‑arms reach and mixing decoys with strike craft. He said some drones now carry larger warheads (he described increases from about 50 kg to as much as 90 kg) and noted the emergence of fiber‑optic and turbojet variants.

- Panelists listed systems in current use or under discussion for Ukraine’s layered air defense: Patriot, HAWK, NASAMS, IRIS‑T/SAMP/T, Mistral, and short‑range counter‑drone systems. They also described extensive use of electronic warfare, mobile small‑caliber mobile fire teams and improvised interceptors.

Policy and capability recommendations

- Increase and accelerate transfers of layered systems and interceptors: Panelists urged that pledges (including Patriot transfers being discussed among allies) be converted into timely deliveries and that transfers not be limited to single platforms.

- Scale production and backfill stocks: John Hardy and Dara Masako urged backfilling allied inventories through increased U.S. and European production, and suggested using drawdown authority and U.S. production capacity to replace allied systems transferred to Ukraine.

- Expand Ukrainian manufacturing: Major General Kremenitsky said Ukraine is pursuing joint production and local manufacture with international partners and urged removal of bureaucratic export and legal barriers to scale up domestic production.

- Target launch infrastructure and production: Panelists repeatedly recommended attacking or otherwise degrading Russian launch platforms and factories that produce missiles and Shahed‑type drones to reduce future waves of attacks, while noting the technical and political limits to such strikes.

- Tighten sanctions enforcement: Masako and Hardy said sanctions and export controls remain useful and should be actively enforced to raise the cost and difficulty of Russia’s procurement of components and machine tooling.

Panel exchange and questions

During audience Q&A, speakers discussed indigenous Ukrainian projects such as interceptor drones, a national situational‑awareness architecture called "Delta" to integrate sensors and command‑and‑control, and the challenges of integrating many different allied platforms. Kremenitsky said "Delta" is an open‑architecture system intended to aggregate sensors from multiple services and international partners. Panelists also discussed tactical limits: Patriot and other systems are valuable but "quantity of interceptors" remains a core constraint.

Concluding note

Panelists across think tanks and Ukraine’s defense mission emphasized that while Ukrainian defenders have adapted and improved tactics and local production, the current challenge is one of scale and speed: more interceptors, more munitions, faster deliveries, stronger sanctions enforcement and expanded cooperation on production and integrated air‑defense command and control.

The public briefing was convened by the U.S. Helsinki Commission and included opening remarks and audience questions from House staff and interns; panelists invited further technical discussions and cooperation with U.S. and allied partners.