(Dobbs) Ukraine Can’t Shoot All of Russia’s Missiles and Drones Down. Sometimes It Can’t Shoot Any Down At All.Children in Ukraine are due to start school again tomorrow.
When we see photos from Ukraine of homes and apartment buildings blasted by Russian missiles and drones, do we stop to think about the people inside? Some lost their worldly possessions, some lost their lives. Late Friday night in the country’s capital, Kiev, at least 37 more lost their lives. It was one of the deadliest Russian bombardments this year, but far from the only one. According to journalists on the ground, the air raid sirens these days are screaming day and night. Friday alone, by Ukraine’s count, Russia destroyed more than a dozen apartment buildings, 16 private homes, 14 warehouses, and 16 cars and trucks. The best that people can do when the sirens sound is race to a shelter. Or just run for their lives. Aiming for infrastructure that will keep Ukrainians cold in the winter, Russia has stepped up the lethality of its attacks, now using Iranian-made jet-powered 400-mile-per-hour drones on top of its arsenal of missiles. Since the beginning of July, it has launched more than 1,700 of the jet-speed drones, plus 6,500 slower ones just in the past week. A New York Times analysis, based on numbers from Ukraine’s air force, shows that Russia also has fired 650 heavy missiles at Ukraine since the start of the year. Ukraine can’t shoot them all down. In fact sometimes it can’t shoot any down at all. Its supply of Patriot anti-missile systems, the most effective Western-made weapon to shoot enemy missiles and drones out of the sky, is almost gone, and suppliers aren’t keeping up. In a statement in early August, President Zelensky said, “Unfortunately, supplies of anti-ballistic capabilities from partners have decreased significantly this year. The number of air defense missiles supplied has dropped threefold compared with 2025.” Here’s what that means in real world terms. Russia fired two broadsides of missiles at Ukraine at the beginning of August. In the first one, 35 missiles flew at their targets, and only two were intercepted. In the second one, 28 were fired and none was intercepted. Between the two attacks, more than 25 people died. A spokesman for Ukraine’s air force explained in an interview, “A goalkeeper is standing in the goal, and suddenly ten balls are flying at him at once. He cannot catch all of them.” In several ways, that falls at least in part on President Trump. For one thing, he started a war in the Middle East that has dragged on for longer than he thought, and dragged down our stockpiles of Patriots. In addition to American forces in the Gulf, our Gulf allies targeted by Iran have been exhausting their own supplies and asking for more. For another, midway into July, Trump appeared to agree to help Ukraine build Patriots itself. “We’ll give them the right to make Patriots” he said in a meeting with Zelensky during the NATO summit in Turkey. “We’ll show them how to do it.” But like so many other things he appears to agree to, it didn’t last much longer than an Ultimate Fighting Championship match on the White House lawn. By the end of the month, in a stunning u-turn, Trump told his cabinet, “We have not agreed to that.” His reasoning was, “It is a hard thing to give away that kind of technology,” and as if speaking from experience, “Those people you give the technology, they could someday turn on you.” Uh-huh. Kind of like how the United States under Trump turned on Ukraine. This year, he has not asked Congress for a cent to provide direct military assistance to the Western-leaning nation Russia invaded four-and-a-half years ago. So many things could explain it. Maybe he just couldn’t care less. Maybe he’d rather stay on the good side of Russia’s President Putin. Maybe he’s too preoccupied with Iran’s failure to capitulate, its leadership saying again on Saturday that they will keep the Strait of Hormuz closed until the United States capitulates to their demands. Maybe he’s spending time calculating how much good he can get from his newest stab at colonialism, his deal for the U.S. to take majority ownership in a joint oil venture in Venezuela. Maybe he’s too busy fighting in court to build his ballroom and put his name back up on The Kennedy Center. Maybe he’s too distraught by last week’s federal court decisions to block his plan to make mail-in voting harder, and to let stand his conviction for paying money to a porn star. Maybe it’s a little off topic, but the judge in that trial wrote, “Paying hush money to an adult film star or engaging in a cover-up of an embarrassment are not subsumed in presidential immunity.” Trump’s gift of immunity from the Supreme Court might protect him from ever paying the price, but it can’t protect him from the stigma of being the first American president in history convicted as a criminal felon. So maybe the man’s mind is just too darned full of other things to be thinking anymore about saving Ukraine. However, all might not be lost. Ukraine has been negotiating with European allies to build some sort of new anti-aircraft system to repel Russia’s airborne bombardments. And Trump fudged again, telling The Financial Times that when it comes to letting Ukraine build Patriots, he is “not sure.” Whatever happens though, it won’t happen overnight. And while the world waits, more people in war-torn Ukraine will lose their worldly possessions and more will lose their lives. Children in Ukraine are due to start school again tomorrow. |