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Oleksandry Syrskyi said Russia is facing a shortage of UAV-based anti-aircraft missiles.
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Ukraine is trying to exhaust Russia’s air defenses this year through long-range strike operations.
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Analysts and Russian military bloggers warn that the Kremlin’s defenses are overwhelmed.
Ukraine’s commander-in-chief says Russia has very few anti-aircraft missiles left to deal with drone attacks, a sign that Moscow shares the West’s concerns about the stockpile as the air war develops.
Ukrainian military chief Alexander Silsky made the remarks during a meeting with Canada’s defense minister in Kiev on Sunday.
“I note that systematic strikes against Russian production facilities further weaken enemy air defense capabilities, which already lack missiles to counter Ukrainian unmanned systems and strike assets,” Silsky wrote in a statement.
Silsky’s comments come as militaries around the world scramble to develop new responses to the growing use of long-range attack drones, which are cheap, expendable and less suited to more expensive traditional missile attacks.
Now, his assessment suggests that intensifying strike action in Ukraine is forcing Moscow into the same predicament.
Ukraine regularly reports dozens of long-range attacks on Russian territory each month, using drones and missiles to damage energy and military infrastructure behind its borders.
Most recently, the country’s security services said there were attacks on Russia’s Black Sea Fleet naval base in Sevastopol and Belbek Airport in Crimea on Sunday.
The Institute for War (ISW), a Washington-based think tank, wrote in an assessment on Sunday that Ukraine has been steadily increasing the pace of strikes against Russia and “is likely to continue to exploit Russia’s large attack surface deep in its rear and overstretched Russian air defenses.”
The think tank documented at least 10 Ukrainian reports of remote attacks on Russian infrastructure in the past two weeks.
It is known that Russia mainly uses the Pantsir point defense missile system to deal with drone threats, but its interceptors take much longer to produce than drones.
Ukraine also said in February that it had destroyed at least half of Russia’s Pantsir systems.
In early April, Rybar, one of Russia’s most famous military blogging organizations, wrote an article expressing concerns that Ukraine would launch “a protracted war aimed at penetrating Russian air defense systems” before the summer of 2026.
“It is physically impossible to create tens of thousands of Pantsir missiles out of thin air,” the popular commentary site wrote, adding that Russia’s anti-aircraft missile force was already “stretched and ammunition consumption is accelerating.”
Raibar suggested that Russia adopt a counter-drone strategy like Ukraine’s, including an emphasis on mobile fire teams and interception of drone crews.
Analysts at the London-based Royal United Services Institute also wrote in a December report that Russia was depleting its anti-aircraft interceptors faster than they could produce them and was working rapidly to bolster manufacturing.
The shortage “is overwhelmingly concentrated on older or obsolete platforms such as the 9K33 Osa and SHORAD systems, particularly Pantsir,” the analyst added.
The United States burned most of its anti-aircraft interceptors during its war with Iran, with RUSI analysts reporting that the United States consumed 11,300 munitions in just 16 days of fighting.
Some of the most serious concerns involve inventories of high-end interceptors such as Patriot missiles, Terminal High Altitude Area Defense interceptors and ship-based Standard Missile interceptors.
Read the original article on Business Insider