Ukraine needs air defence to cover its defence industry – ISW

Institute for the Study of War has estimated that the development of a defence industrial base could eventually allow Ukraine to maintain its defence against Russia and meet long-term national security needs with a significant reduction in foreign military assistance. But for now, this requires Western air defence. 

Source: Institute for the Study of War (ISW)

Details: Ukrainian officials have expressed their intentions to expand Ukraine’s defence industry both within the country and abroad since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion.

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Matthew Miller, spokesman for the US Department of State, said that providing Ukraine with Western air defence equipment would be a critical element of Ukraine’s ability to defend its defence industry, which in turn would reduce Ukraine’s dependence on Western aid and especially US aid to Ukraine in the long term. 

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy recently stressed that Ukraine cannot mitigate the problem of not having enough air defence systems and that only air defence systems provided by the West, namely Patriot systems, will allow Ukraine to defend Ukraine against an increased Russian attack campaign. 

ISW continues to assess that the United States will not need to send large security assistance packages to Ukraine indefinitely if Ukraine can sufficiently expand its defence industrial capabilities. But providing air defence systems and missiles to Ukraine is crucial to Ukraine’s ability to defend its energy infrastructure and its defence industry from Russian attacks.

To quote the ISW’s Key Takeaways on 12 April: 

• Russian leader Vladimir Putin acknowledged that Russia’s ongoing strike campaign against Ukrainian energy facilities aims in part to devastate the Ukrainian defence industry, confirming ISW’s ongoing assessment that Russian strikes against Ukrainian energy facilities aim to degrade Ukrainian defence industrial capacity.
• ISW continues to assess that the development of Ukraine’s defence industrial base (DIB) over time can allow Ukraine to sustain its defence against Russia and longer-term national security needs with significantly reduced foreign military assistance.
• Russian forces are domestically producing and fielding a new air-to-surface subsonic cruise missile against Ukraine designated the Kh-69 as part of continued efforts to improve strike packages and penetrate Ukraine’s degraded air defence.
• The Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) claimed that it prevented a group of Central Asians from perpetrating a terrorist attack against a Russian military facility in occupied Ukraine with Ukraine’s help, likely as part of efforts to set information conditions to portray any future Ukrainian attack on legitimate Russian military targets in occupied Ukraine as “terrorist” attacks.
• Russian forces recently made confirmed advances near Avdiivka and Donetsk City.
• Russia is reportedly sending about 2,400 Eastern Military District (EMD) military personnel currently in Russia to fight in Ukraine to make up for personnel losses at the front.
• Russian occupation officials continue to expand educational programs that aim to indoctrinate Ukrainian children and erase their Ukrainian identity.

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