Ukraine is building a patchwork antiballistic defense, one stopgap at a time

KYIV, Ukraine — Ukraine is scrambling to secure enough Patriot interceptors to stop Russian ballistic missiles this winter, piecing together allied stockpile transfers , new production agreements and a homegrown interceptor program as quickly as possible before the cold sets in.

The push comes as the world runs short on the weapons Ukraine needs most. U.S. forces in Europe face a “beyond critical” shortage of Patriot interceptors after stocks were moved to the Middle East for the Iran war , a NATO official said in August.

Ukraine is also bracing for another winter of Russian strikes on its energy grid, a campaign that increasingly relies on jet-powered Shahed drones too fast for most of the cheap interceptor drones Ukraine has used to stop older models.

“Russia uses almost only jet-powered Shaheds to attack Kyiv because the interceptors that we were using in the past against older generations of drones had an interception rate of around 90%,” a manager at Ukrainian interceptor developer Grim Tech told Defense News last month.

The faster drones force Ukraine to expend scarce and expensive missiles just as it tries to conserve Patriot ammunition for ballistic threats — the only reliable option against Russia’s even harder-to-stop ballistic missiles, according to Ukrainian officials.

“Ballistic missiles are especially difficult to deal with,” President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said after a massive aerial barrage on Wednesday night saw Russia fire 70 missiles, many of them ballistic, and waves of Shahed drones at Kyiv and 12 other regions.

Soldiers downed 39 of the 48 cruise missiles but only five ballistic missiles, according to Ukraine’s air force . At least 32 people were killed in the attacks, and over 100 were injured, Zelenskyy wrote on Telegram .

Civilian casualties in Ukraine have risen monthly throughout most of 2026. U.N. monitors verified 372 civilians killed and 2,349 injured in August, second only to July, with long-range missiles and drones causing 47% of the toll.

Kyiv is assembling a patchwork of antiballistic air defense solutions, each piece on a different clock: Rounds transferred from allied stocks for this winter, imported systems and licensed production that will begin to matter over the next several years, and Freyja, a Ukrainian-European interceptor still in development.

The fastest fix depends on allies sharing existing stockpiles, a request Defense Minister Yevhen Khmara put forward at his first Ukraine Defense Contact Group meeting with allies on Sept. 8.

Kyiv has signed contracts for roughly 1,000 Patriot missiles in recent months, but most will not ship for years, Khmara said.

He asked partners for 300 interceptors from their stockpiles now, offering newer missiles from those contracts as replacements.

“The situation with ballistics is much more difficult. And that difficulty is precisely down to the lack of Patriot missiles,” he told allies.

Germany answered Khmara’s call by promising an undisclosed number of PAC-2 interceptors from Bundeswehr stocks.

Britain committed £100 million through NATO’s Prioritised Ukraine Requirements List (PURL) for Patriot missiles and other air-defense equipment intended to arrive before winter, according to the British government .

But the United States did not include Patriot missiles in the nearly $400 million in expiring Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative money it moved to obligate before the fiscal year ended, a source familiar with the package told Reuters .

Surging production of existing antiballistic interceptors

“Ukraine is ready not only to produce ballistic missile interceptors for its own needs, but also to strengthen the United States and its allies through joint production,” Zelenskyy wrote on X after a recent meeting with a U.S. congressional delegation in Kyiv.

Both Europe and the U.S. are in talks with Ukraine to begin ramping up joint manufacturing initiatives for both the Patriot missile system and the Franco-Italian Aster 30.

Zelenskyy said Sept. 25 that U.S. President Donald Trump made a final political decision to grant Ukraine licenses to produce Patriot missiles. But Washington and manufacturers have not publicly identified the variant, Ukraine’s workshare, production site or first-delivery date.

Lockheed Martin said it aims to raise its own annual PAC-3 MSE capacity from roughly 600 missiles to 2,000 by 2030, while a $14.7 billion Boeing contract would triple production of the interceptor’s seeker.

Germany is scheduled to begin PAC-2 GEM-T production , and Berlin has separately asked Washington and Lockheed Martin to permit PAC-3 MSE production in Germany, but that proposal remains unresolved.

France and Italy agreed in a joint declaration in July to authorize licensed production of Aster 30 interceptors in Ukraine before the end of 2026, along with providing Kyiv with four SAMP/T NG systems — becoming their first combat user.

France also committed two interim SAMP/T complexes, a GF300 radar before year’s end and progressive SAMP/T NG deployment beginning in 2027.

The sovereignty bet: Freyja

Ukraine and Europe are looking to a new weapon called “Frejya” as a longer-term solution.

Freyja is a Ukrainian-designed ballistic interceptor built around Fire Point’s FP-7.X missile, including an interceptor, launcher, radar and command-and-control network.

It’s priced at roughly $1 million per round, about one-quarter of the cost of a PAC-3 MSE, and designed to plug into NATO-standard radars and command posts already in the field.

The FP-7.X flew for the first time in early June and is built to kill ballistic targets at roughly 15 miles up using a high-explosive fragmentation warhead rather than the PAC-3’s hit-to-kill collision — which may come in later versions — at a target price of approximately $700,000 per interceptor, or roughly one-fifth the price of a PAC-3.

The company says it will build three interceptors a day starting in August. Zelenskyy wants the system up and running within a year, and the coalition is targeting its first real ballistic intercept for the end of 2027.

Zelenskyy launched the initiative with nine European countries in Paris in July — and the effort is still growing.

Poland joined the group on Sept. 17, a week after Canadian PM Mark Carney told Zelenskyy that Ottawa would contribute its technologies to Freyja along with providing Kyiv with a broader package that includes C$350 million in interceptors.

The EU is separately weighing direct funding for the program on top of national contributions, according to Militarnyi .

Katie Livingstone is the Ukraine correspondent for Defense News and Military Times. Based in Kyiv, she has covered Russia's full-scale invasion since its first days. She is a former Fulbright fellow whose award-winning work has appeared in outlets across Europe and the U.S.

乌克兰基辅——乌克兰正争分夺秒地确保获得足够的“爱国者”拦截器，以在今年冬天阻止俄罗斯的弹道导弹。在寒冬来临之前，乌克兰正尽快整合盟军的库存转移、新的生产协议以及本土的拦截器计划。

乌克兰急需的武器正面临全球短缺，而此时，美国却在积极寻求援助。一位北约官员8月份表示，由于库存被转移到中东用于伊朗战争，驻欧美军面临着“极其严重”的“爱国者”导弹拦截器短缺问题。

乌克兰也在为俄罗斯冬季对其能源网络的袭击做准备，这场袭击越来越多地依赖于喷气式“沙赫德”无人机，这种无人机的速度太快，乌克兰用来拦截旧型号无人机的大多数廉价拦截无人机都无法应对。

“俄罗斯几乎只使用喷气式‘沙赫德’无人机攻击基辅，因为我们过去用来拦截老一代无人机的拦截器拦截率约为 90%。”乌克兰拦截器开发商 Grim Tech 的一位经理上个月告诉《防务新闻》。

速度更快的无人机迫使乌克兰消耗稀缺且昂贵的导弹，而乌克兰官员表示，乌克兰正努力节省“爱国者”导弹的弹药以应对弹道导弹威胁——这是对抗俄罗斯更难拦截的弹道导弹的唯一可靠选择。

“弹道导弹尤其难以应对，”俄罗斯总统泽连斯基在周三晚间对基辅和其他 12 个地区发动大规模空中打击后表示。当晚，俄罗斯发射了 70 枚导弹，其中许多是弹道导弹，并出动了多架“沙赫德”无人机。

据乌克兰空军称，士兵们击落了48枚巡航导弹中的39枚，但只击落了5枚弹道导弹。泽连斯基在Telegram上写道，袭击造成至少32人死亡，100多人受伤。

2026 年大部分时间里，乌克兰平民伤亡人数逐月上升。联合国监测人员核实，8 月份有 372 名平民死亡，2349 名平民受伤，仅次于 7 月份，其中远程导弹和无人机造成了 47% 的伤亡。

基辅正在拼凑各种反弹道防空解决方案，每个方案的进度都不一样：从盟军库存转移的弹药将在今年冬天投入使用，进口系统和授权生产的弹药将在未来几年内开始发挥作用，还有仍在研发中的乌克兰-欧洲联合研制的拦截导弹“弗雷娅”。

最快的解决办法取决于盟友共享现有库存，这是国防部长叶夫根·赫马拉在9月8日与盟友举行的第一次乌克兰防务联络小组会议上提出的要求。

赫马拉表示，基辅最近几个月签署了大约 1000 枚爱国者导弹的合同，但其中大部分要几年后才能交付。

他要求合作伙伴从其库存中提供 300 枚拦截导弹，并提出用合同中更新的导弹作为替换。

“弹道导弹的情况要复杂得多。而造成这种困难的原因恰恰在于缺乏爱国者导弹，”他告诉盟友。

德国响应了赫马拉的呼吁，承诺从联邦国防军库存中提供数量不详的 PAC-2 拦截导弹。

据英国政府称，英国已通过北约的乌克兰优先需求清单（PURL）承诺投入 1 亿英镑，用于购买爱国者导弹和其他防空设备，这些设备计划在冬季之前交付。

但据一位熟悉该方案的消息人士告诉路透社，美国并未将“爱国者”导弹纳入其在财政年度结束前拨付的近 4 亿美元即将到期的乌克兰安全援助计划资金中。

现有反弹道拦截器的产量激增

“乌克兰不仅准备为自身需求生产弹道导弹拦截器，而且准备通过联合生产来加强美国及其盟友的能力，”泽连斯基在最近与美国国会代表团在基辅会晤后在X上写道。

欧洲和美国都在与乌克兰进行谈判，以开始加大力度推进爱国者导弹系统和法意联合研制的阿斯特30导弹的联合生产计划。

泽连斯基9月25日表示，美国总统特朗普已做出最终政治决定，授予乌克兰生产“爱国者”导弹的许可证。但华盛顿和制造商尚未公开透露具体型号、乌克兰的生产份额、生产地点或首批交付日期。

洛克希德·马丁公司表示，其目标是到 2030 年将其 PAC-3 MSE 的年产能从大约 600 枚导弹提高到 2000 枚，而波音公司价值 147 亿美元的合同将使拦截器导引头的产量增加两倍。

德国计划开始生产 PAC-2 GEM-T，柏林已单独要求华盛顿和洛克希德·马丁公司允许在德国生产 PAC-3 MSE，但该提议仍未得到解决。

法国和意大利在7月份的一份联合声明中同意授权在2026年底前在乌克兰进行Aster 30拦截导弹的特许生产，并向基辅提供四套SAMP/T NG系统——使其成为该系统的首个作战用户。

法国还承诺建设两个临时性的 SAMP/T 系统，在年底前部署 GF300 雷达，并从 2027 年开始逐步部署 SAMP/T NG。

主权赌注：弗雷娅

乌克兰和欧洲正将目光投向一种名为“弗雷亚”的新型武器，将其视为一种长期的解决方案。

Freyja 是一款乌克兰设计的弹道拦截器，以 Fire Point 公司的 FP-7.X 导弹为核心，包括拦截器、发射器、雷达和指挥控制网络。

每轮售价约为 100 万美元，约为 PAC-3 MSE 价格的四分之一，设计用于接入已部署在战场上的北约标准雷达和指挥所。

FP-7.X 于 6 月初首次试飞，其设计目的是使用高爆破片弹头而非 PAC-3 的碰撞杀伤方式（后者可能会在后续版本中采用），在大约 15 英里高空摧毁弹道目标。该拦截机的目标价格约为每架 70 万美元，约为 PAC-3 价格的五分之一。

该公司表示，从8月开始，每天将生产三枚拦截弹。泽连斯基希望该系统在一年内投入使用，而联盟的目标是在2027年底前实现首次真正的弹道拦截。

泽连斯基于7月在巴黎与九个欧洲国家共同发起了这项倡议——而且这项努力仍在不断发展壮大。

波兰于 9 月 17 日加入该组织。一周前，加拿大总理马克·卡尼告诉泽连斯基，渥太华将向弗雷亚提供技术，并向基辅提供一揽子更广泛的援助，其中包括价值 3.5 亿加元的拦截器。

据米利塔尼称，欧盟正在单独考虑在各国出资之外，为该计划提供直接资金。

凯蒂·利文斯通是《防务新闻》和《军事时报》的乌克兰特派记者。她常驻基辅，自俄罗斯全面入侵乌克兰之初便开始报道此事。她曾是富布赖特学者，其获奖作品发表于欧洲和美国的多家媒体。