Why Ukrainian air defense cannot intercept all Russian army strikes: Zelenskyy explains the situation

Ukraine cannot counter Russian attacks from the sky with air defense systems alone. This is because the Russian occupation forces drop about 3,500 bombs on Ukrainian cities every month. And this is not counting drones and missiles.

It is too expensive and almost impossible to counter such attacks with air defense systems alone. That's why Ukraine is asking its partners for permission to strike at the Russian army's airbases, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in an interview with the BBC.

He noted that Ukraine will never have enough air defense missiles to shoot down all Russian bombs. He reminded that one missile for the American Patriot air defense system costs about $3 million. Moreover, their production is limited.

"The Russians use 3,500 bombs every month against civilians. We will never have the same number of missiles. It is very expensive. And no one in the world can produce such a number of missiles for air defense every month," Zelenskyy said.

The aggressor country should be afraid to use its aircraft, so Ukraine needs weapons that can hit these aircraft at their airfields, the head of the Ukrainian state said.

He added that he was looking forward to a decision from the UK on the use of long-range weapons against targets in Russia, but did not put pressure on the new prime minister.

Earlier, US Department of Defense spokeswoman Sabrina Singh said that after the NATO summit, the country's position on allowing the use of ATACMS missiles to strike deep into Russia had not changed. At the same time, she emphasized that the Ukrainian Defense Forces have other long-range weapons for such strikes, which were not provided by Washington.

Mykhailo Podoliak, an advisor to the Presidential Administration, explained that by the phrase "strikes deep into Russia," Ukraine does not mean demonstrating single explosions in Russia, but rather the systematic destruction of Russian air bases and military production facilities. The right strategy involves weakening the aggressor country in three ways.

As reported by OBOZ.UA, the Pentagon spokesman said that the United States did not give the Armed Forces permission to fire ATACMS missiles deep into the territory of the Russian Federation because of fears that the war could "go beyond Ukraine." Washington does not want to see the "unintended consequences" that such strikes could cause.

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