Zelenskiy is sounding desperate

It's clear now that Ukraine will not get any more Patriot interceptor missiles after its exhaust4ed its stockpile. That leaves Ukraine's skies wide open ahead of an anticipated Russian winter campaign

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy is starting to sound a bit desperate. After promising him a license to produce Patriots at home during the Ankara NATO summit US President Donald Trump flopped again and yanked that rug out from under the Uranian president’s feet in less than week.

So much for the about face the Trump administration did, abandoning Russian President Vladimir Putin to throw its weight behind Bankova thanks to the “turning point” in the war. That feel good honeymoon was bookended by Elon Musk’s refusal to meet with Zelenskiy while he was in Washington asking for permission to use Starlink over Russian territory this autumn – a key part of what is left of Zelenskiy’s strategic options.

But people keep reporting Zelenskiy comments about “requests” for more ammo the newly minted Anti-Ballistic Coalition, FREYJA the EU is putting together to “coordinate joint defences against Russian ballistic missile attacks.” It’s a fantasy. You can have as many committee meetings and make as detailed plans as you like, but if your gun is empty, your gun is empty.

Zelenskiy also asked Trump for an emergency tranche of 300 interceptors to get through this winter from the American stockpile – the only source of PAC-3s left. But the Center for Strategic & International Studies (CSIS) just reported the US reserve is down to 759 missiles. Zelenskiy is asking for a third of what the Pentagon has left. With Trump revving up to restart the war in Iran, he said, “No. We need them ourselves.” Zelenskiy’s pleas for ammo – and that is what they are, “pleas” – is desperation. He is at the point where he has to get ammo, paying no regard to military strategic minimum planning. It has boiled down to: if you have a missile, give it to me. Basta.” Poignantly, he gave a speech to his foreign diplomatic corps yesterday, where he ordered ambassadors: “Find out how many missiles your country has and bring them home. Missiles should not be sitting in stockpiles.” That is not how it works. No government is going to strip itself of its strategic stockpile to the point where you go below the minimum as you leave your own country defenceless. Secretary of War Pete Hegseth already cut off all military supplies to Ukraine last summer on exactly these grounds until he was overruled by Trump, which is one of the reasons why the stockpile is so small now.

Zelinsky is continuously talking about “ballistic missiles” if you listen closely. And rightly so. The only thing that Ukraine has that can stop a Russian ballistic missile is the PAC-3, and \ Ukraine has just run out just as Russia doubled production in the last year.

Zelenskiy himself said in Ankara, “the war has gone into the air”. Russia fired 377 missiles (127 ballistic missiles) at Ukraine in just July – double what it fired only a month earlier, which also set a new record. Last year Russia fired a total of 900 ballistic missiles at Ukraine, according to EU Defence Commissioner Andrius Kubilius, but it now has the production capacity to more than double that number this year and still have spares left over. Speaking of the onslaught at the weekend, yesterday Zelenskiy said: “Only one ballistic missile was intercepted, simply because there are no interceptors for the Patriot systems,” adding last month, “ballistic missiles is Russia’s last strategic advantage.” I don’t understand why this is not a frontpage story. The numbers are widely and publicly available. That is a massive change in Russian strategy, yet most of the coverage is of burning residential buildings in Kyiv and not the country-wide destruction of military-industrial assets or the crippling of Ukraine’s ports, which is a far more serious problem. Ukraine’s economy is being brought to a standstill by the campaign. More than 400 petrol stations have now been destroyed in a systematic campaign that is now starting to fuel Ukraine’s own fuel crisis.

It changes the nature and outlook for the war completely. Yet, the reporting is still all about “coalition of the willing” meetings in Paris and paper contracts to “supply” Ukraine with Griffen fighters sometime in 2030 – or never. The EU still has not distributed the €45bn from the €90bn EU loan agreed in December, as no one has any money, and the Ministry of Finance (MinFin) says that would still leave a $20bn hole in the budget. But a drop in Russia’s oil and gas revenues gets widely reported, although July’s increase in o&g revenues got widely ignored.

But the game is not over yet. What everyone is terrified of is a repeat of the Russian bombing campaign that reached its crescendo in January-February last year during the very coldest months. The spring usually arrives at the end of March, so Russia’s window to freeze Ukraine into submission is not that wide. 300 interceptors may have made a difference.

Zelenskiy’s new plan B is if they can’t shoot ballistic missiles out of the sky anymore they will get them while they are still on the ground. And here Ukraine is in with a chance. It already has the Flamingo cruise missile, which is now in play and Fire Point hopes to roll out the F-9, Ukraine’s first true ballistic missile, before the end of the year. This is one place where Ukraine can exploit a major military weakness. Russia has repurposed its famous S-300 and S-400 SAM air defence systems to surface-to-surface mode and is using them offensively in Ukraine. In other words, the Kremlin has stripped Russia of its own air defences and the country is wide open to attack. Russia’s skies are also open.

However, this looks like a carbon copy of the Werner von Braun V2 Wunderwaffen at the end of WWII that didn’t quite make the deadline. Even if the F-9 goes into production in December, there won’t be enough time to collapse the Russian economy. And in the meantime, the situation with the Armed Forces of Russia (AFR) progress in the Donbas against the Fortress Belt is very worrying. There it is not so much about ballistic missiles, but the even more powerful FAB Glide bombs. Reportedly, Russian fighter jets are now in range of the heavily fortified cities and Ukraine has no defences against glide bombs whatsoever – not even PAC-3 interceptors can bring them down.

In the meantime, Operation Wildberries will continue. I count more than a dozen warehouses have been destroyed - probably enough to bankrupt the company. That is a problem as VTB, the second biggest bank in Russia, is heavily exposed to Wildberries which has over RUB1 trillion in debt and some argue could spark a financial crisis. Others argue that by bringing the war into Russian living rooms will also fuel protests, especially if Putin calls for a general mobilisation in September as many are expecting. That would almost certainly trigger protests and/or another large exodus and possibly even a palace coup. Moscow is awash with rumours at the moment and there is clearly some sort of purge going on around Security Council Sergei Shoigu. Even the Rottenberg brothers have been targeted with several of their senior managers arrested. Certainly, people we talk to in Moscow are very nervous.

But these are long shots at best, not a serious plan. What is more likely is the state will bail Wildberries out, or VTB will simply take it over and Tayana Kim will lose control. Look at what happened to Yandex when its founder and Russian tech god Arkady Volozh came out with Russia’s “barbaric war” comment. The most valuable tech company in Europe is now controlled by oligarchs who are “close to the Kremlin.” Does that mean the war will end soon? I don’t know. The Ukrainian people have proven to be extraordinarily resilient, and the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) has worked miracles. The reports from the battlefield remain mixed but taken all together, it is no wonder Zelenskiy is beginning to sound a bit desperate.

This article originally appeared in Editor’s Picks, a free daily email digest of bne IntelliNews’ best stories from the last 24 hours. Sign up for free here.

https://to989.infusionsoft.com/app/form/editors-picks-subscribers