Trump's War in Iran Gives Russia an Opening to Reverse Ukraine's Momentum
A global shortage of missile interceptors has given Putin an opening to neutralize Kyiv's mid-strike campaign against Moscow.
In the early morning hours of August 5, at least 17 people were killed in an attack on the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, that included 24 ballistic missiles and four hypersonic missiles. According to the Ukrainian Air Force, none of those missiles were shot down. In July, Russia fired a record 126 ballistic missiles at Ukraine -- about half the number it launched in all of 2024. Last month, around 400 civilians died in Russia’s air attacks -- the most since April 2022.
Ballistic missile attacks are really, really scary. Last month when I was in Kyiv, the explosions began only a few minutes -- if that -- after the air raid sirens sounded, and the noise from the impacts was deafening. Ballistic and ballistic-like missiles also cause much more damage, destruction, and death than drone attacks. Last week, a Kyiv-based colleague, Emmanuelle Chaze, reported from one of the hardest-hit districts in the capital in her newsletter, A View from Ukraine:
Zdolbunivska Street looked like the apocalypse more than a street: dangling advertisement boards, dark puddles on the road, a crater left by a missile as well as impact marks from cluster munitions on the ground and on charred cars still parked in front of residential buildings. The road was also completely littered with debris and vegetation torn apart by the explosion. Here, people had been killed in the streets at the very moment they had left their homes to head to the nearest shelter.
With all of the indiscriminate destruction, this sounds like the depiction of a city after a natural disaster, but it is a consequence of political choices made by Donald Trump that enable Vladimir Putin’s war of aggression. Principally, Ukraine has few missile interceptors left because of Trump’s war of choice in Iran. During the military campaign that President Trump launched with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Feb. 28, the U.S. has depleted about half of its roughly 2,200 Patriot missiles and nearly 80% of its THAAD anti-ballistic missile interceptors, according to CNN. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said he asked Trump for 300 Patriots to defend against power and heating attacks ahead of this coming winter, but Trump told him that they were needed in the Middle East, according to the Financial Times. Zelenskyy said on August 5 that reduced ballistic missile deliveries may also be a “political move” from the U.S. to make Ukraine “more compliant.”
Behind the paywall, I will discuss:
How Trump cut off Ukraine funding
How Ukraine’s air campaign is fundamentally different from Russia’s
How Ukraine might counter Russia’s air attacks with help from Elon Musk
