In the week starting on December 29, the Russian army launched a series of large-scale air strikes across Ukraine, using more than 500 missiles and drones. In order to ensure that the target is hit, the Ukrainian air defense system needs to launch two missiles at the same time to intercept the target in many cases, which means that in the process of air defense operations, the number of missiles consumed by the Ukrainian army may have exceeded 800. If such a trend continues, the Ukrainian army will soon run out of anti-aircraft missiles!
For the Russian army, the consumption of the Ukrainian army's anti-aircraft missiles is as important as the destruction of the Ukrainian army's strategic goals!
Dr. Jade McGlin, a senior researcher at the Russian Center for Strategic and International Studies, said that the depletion of stockpiles of Patriot missiles and other missiles is a "clear component" of Russia's strategy.
This idea was also expressed by Yaroslav Trofimov, the Wall Street Journal's chief correspondent for international affairs.
He said that Russia is seeking to deplete Ukraine's stocks of Patriot missiles and air defense radar systems in order to prevent the restoration of the Ukrainian army's air defense system.
According to publicly available information, at least five Patriot missile batteries from the United States, Germany and the Netherlands were transferred to Ukraine. They have played an important role in protecting Ukraine's capital, Kyiv, and are said to have shot down several advanced Russian warplanes in May and December last year.
Trofimov said Russia may be conducting missile operations on its own schedule and knows that "no matter what happens, whether the United States turns off the tap or not, supplies from abroad will be limited." "
Once the Ukrainian air defense system is completely destroyed, and the West cannot quickly help the Ukrainian army rebuild the air defense system, the Ukrainian sky will be a world of Russian aircraft and all kinds of missiles, and the speed of the Russian army's advance on the front line will be greatly accelerated!
The commander-in-chief of the Ukrainian army, Zaluzhny, announced that the Patriot air defense system of the Ukrainian army shot down all the "Dagger" hypersonic missiles!
On January 3, the commander-in-chief of the Ukrainian army, Valery Zaluzhny, said that the Ukrainian Patriot air defense system shot down all ten "Dagger" hypersonic missiles fired by the Russian army at Kyiv, setting a record in the history of Ukrainian air defense. It is very illogical that the Ukrainian air defense system has not significantly increased the success rate of interception of other cruise missiles and UAVs that are relatively easy to shoot down.
Judging from the reaction of the global media to this glorious "record" of the Ukrainian army, except for the Ukrainian army itself, I am afraid that no one believes that the Ukrainian army has created this "miracle"! Especially when the Ukrainian army's air defense missiles have been consumed in large quantities, the Ukrainian army's "record" is even more unbelievable.
The only reasonable explanation for Zaluzhny's announcement that all the "Dagger" missiles were shot down is that the Ukrainian side hopes to stabilize the morale of the Ukrainian people through this propaganda, and it is not that the Ukrainian army really used the Patriot air defense missile system to shoot down all the "Dagger" missile systems.
Western air defense systems are costly, and the United States is falling into this strategic black hole of Ukraine!
One Patriot anti-aircraft missile costs up to $5 million, and the total cost of the entire Patriot air defense system is up to $1 billion, including support systems such as ground-based radars.
The bigger problem is that the production capacity of the US military-industrial complex is limited, the production cycle of the entire Patriot air defense system is as long as two years, and the consumption rate of the Patriot air defense missile system of the Ukrainian army far exceeds the supplementary capacity of the United States, forcing the United States to ask Japan's military industrial enterprises for help, asking Japan to make special arrangements to realize the return of Patriot missiles to the United States as soon as possible.
This is true of the Patriot air defense system of the United States, as well as of the air defense systems produced in Germany and Norway, for which the military industry of the whole of Europe has never been prepared for such a high-intensity war.
In addition to the Russian-Ukrainian battlefield, the United States has also engaged in fierce confrontations with the Houthis in the Red Sea region, and hundreds of anti-aircraft missiles have been consumed, making the US military's already urgent missile inventory even worse!
The US military now needs to choose between supporting Ukraine and Israel, but no matter how it chooses, the United States will not be able to avoid retreating on one side, and the emergence of such a situation will undoubtedly strengthen the image of the United States as a "paper tiger"! For the United States, this is undoubtedly a terrible strategic trap and poses a serious threat to its global hegemony!