Ukraine needs more air defense to protect defense industry — ISW

Ukraine needs additional Western air defenses to successfully develop a Ukrainian defense industrial base that will eventually allow it to maintain its defense against Russia and meet long-term national security needs with significantly reduced foreign military aid.

Rubryka writes, referring to the Institute for the Study of War (ISW).

As American analysts point out, Ukrainian officials have expressed intentions to expand Ukraine's defense industry domestically and abroad since the beginning of the full-scale invasion of Russia.

In addition, Matthew Miller, US State Department spokesperson, said that providing Ukraine with Western air defense equipment will be a critical element of Ukraine's ability to defend its defense industry.

This, in turn, will reduce Ukraine's dependence on Western aid and especially US aid in the long term.

Also recently, Ukraine's President, Volodymyr Zelensky, emphasized that Ukraine cannot alleviate the problem of the lack of a sufficient number of air defense systems. In addition, only air defense systems provided by the West, namely the Patriot systems, will allow Ukraine to protect itself from an intensified strike campaign by Russia.

ISW believes that the US will not need to send large packages of security assistance to Ukraine indefinitely if Ukraine can sufficiently expand its defense and industrial capabilities.

However, according to analysts, the provision of air defense systems and missiles to Ukraine will be crucial for Ukraine's ability to defend:

• its energy infrastructure,
• its defense industry from Russian strikes.

ISW key takeaways as of April 12:

• Russian President Vladimir Putin admitted that Russia's campaign of strikes against Ukrainian energy facilities is partly aimed at destroying the Ukrainian defense industry.
• The Russian armed forces are domestically producing and using against Ukraine a new subsonic air-to-surface cruise missile called the Kh-69 as part of ongoing efforts to improve strike packages and penetrate Ukraine's degraded air defense system.
• Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB) said it prevented a group of Central Asian nationals from carrying out a terrorist attack against a Russian military facility in occupied Ukraine, likely as part of an effort to create information conditions to portray any future Ukrainian attack on legitimate Russian military targets in occupied Ukraine as "terrorist" attacks.
• Russian troops recently confirmed an offensive near Avdiivka and Donetsk.
• It is reported that Russia is sending about 2,400 service members of the Eastern Military District (EMD), currently in the Russian Federation, to fight in Ukraine to compensate for the loss of personnel at the front.
  Russian occupation officials continue to expand educational programs aimed at educating Ukrainian children and destroying their Ukrainian identity.
• We will remind you that Ukraine seeks to find seven batteries of the Patriot air defense system from its partners as soon as possible, and is even ready to lend them.