The pressure for the United States to send Ukraine more advanced air defense systems reached a new high Monday after Russia escalated its war on the country with a barrage of deadly missile strikes.
The Kremlin attacks, which targeted civilian areas that for months had enjoyed a relative calm, has produced anew the argument that the West send Ukraine more high-tech air defense weapons, including those similar to Israel’s Iron Dome missile interception system.
Washington has long resisted providing Kyiv with such lethal aid, fearing it could escalate the conflict and arguing it would be too complicated to train Ukrainian troops on the advanced systems. But the latest Russia atrocities could shift the wind in Ukraine’s favor, experts say.
“Ukrainians have shown over and over again, if you give them the right tools to defend themselves, they will. Hopefully this moves the needle,” said John Spencer, a retired Army major and the chairman of Urban Warfare Studies at the research organization Madison Policy Forum.
“If there are people on the other side of that fence, hopefully this is more supporting information that they needed to show that if we have something — whether it’s a rocket or an air defense system — we can give it.”
Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday ordered a rain of cruise and ballistic missiles on Kyiv and nine other Ukrainian cities, killing at least 11 individuals and injuring at least another 64.
Putin said the attacks were a “harsh” response to a Saturday explosion on the Kerch Strait Bridge, a crucial Russian rail and road line to the occupied Crimean Peninsula. The bridge is viewed as a key supply route for Moscow’s military offensive on the south of Ukraine.
The strikes also follow embarrassing Kremlin losses in its so-called “special military operation,” with Russian troops pushed from thousands of miles of territory in a lightning counteroffensive by Ukrainian armed forces starting in September.
Russia’s escalation has prompted international condemnation, and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky took to Telegram to plead for more air and missile defenses from the West — and soon.
About 84 missiles were launched on Ukraine but its air defenses were able to down 43 of them, Kyiv’s forces said, pointing to successes with the Western-supplied military aid.
Zelensky later on Monday revealed he had a “productive” conversation with President Biden on the matter, stressing that air defense “is currently the number 1 priority in our defense cooperation,” he wrote on Twitter.
The White House released its own statement confirming the call and said that Biden “pledged to continue providing Ukraine with the support needed to defend itself, including advanced air defense systems.”
The release did not give further details on what specific systems were discussed.
Zelensky’s call for the protection of Ukrainian airspace is nothing new, as he has made the plea to the West since the start of the Russian invasion on Feb. 24.