Missile Defense's Unforgiving Logic Comes Back to Haunt Russia

Ukrainian long-range drone attacks expose a deepening air defense shortage

Screenshot: Security Service of Ukraine

On 18 June, Ukraine launched its largest long-range drone attack on Moscow since the invasion began, striking the Gazprom Neft oil refinery in Kapotnya, around 15 kilometers from Moscow’s city center, for the second time within a week.

The number of Ukrainian long-range drones involved in the attack is not known. Russian sources put the nationwide total at over 550 drones destroyed on 18 June, with roughly 180 of those engaged approaching Moscow itself. Several nonetheless reached their targets, as seen in video imagery of the attack, triggering large fires and explosions. A small number of cruise missiles may have also been involved in the attack.

The raid represents one of the most successful Ukrainian long-range strike attacks to date. It is also indicative of a broader shift in the dynamics of strike warfare between Russia and Ukraine, demonstrating that the unforgiving nature of missile defense, which Ukraine has experienced for years, has finally begun to haunt Russia as well.

Air defense attrition

The 18 June raid did not occur in a vacuum. It followed months of systematic Ukrainian strikes on Russia’s ground-based air defense network, which measurably thinned out the layers of defense protecting Moscow’s approaches.

Radars have taken the heaviest toll. Between March and May, Ukraine’s General Staff reported 24 radar systems damaged in Crimea alone. April saw a further 25 air defense systems struck, with radars again the largest category, alongside losses of Tor, Buk, Osa, and Pantsir systems. Several S-400 and S-300V components, engagement radars, surveillance radars, and launchers were destroyed in strikes near Sevastopol, Yevpatoria, and Dalne over the same period.

Ukraine’s SBU claims its Alpha unit destroyed or disabled roughly half of Russia’s operational Pantsir-S fleet in 2025 alone. This figure cannot be verified independently. However, it appears to be directionally consistent with the confirmed count of 45 Pantsir losses (damaged or destroyed) since 2022, a figure that has been growing more strongly in recent months.

The cumulative effect is an air defense system with fewer intact layers and reduced sensor coverage feeding whatever interceptors remain. Remaining air and missile defense systems must be spread over an increasingly large area, as the range of Ukrainian long-range strike systems has grown and the number of attack vectors has multiplied.

Interceptor shortage

Until very recently, interceptor scarcity has been discussed almost exclusively as a Ukrainian problem. Ukraine’s interceptor shortage, particularly in ballistic missile defense, remains one of the most pressing short- to medium-term issues facing the Ukrainian armed forces. It now appears, however, that interceptor shortages are increasingly affecting Russia as well.

The first substantive reports indicating that this was becoming a serious concern for Russia emerged in November 2025. At the time, Russian crews were observed loading ground-based Osa-AKM launchers with outdated 9M33M naval interceptors and operating Buk launchers with only one or two rounds. In December that year, analysis by the Royal United Services Institute concluded that Russia was expending more air defense interceptors than it was producing.

In April this year, signs of concern became more pronounced when Russian military bloggers reported a serious shortage of air-defense missiles, particularly for the Pantsir system. This occurred against the backdrop of Russia continuing to maintain, and indeed expand, the dense air and missile defense ring around Moscow, comprising both shorter- and longer-range systems, an effort that likely soaked up additional reserve stockpiles on top of those already expended. Most recently, reports have begun to emerge suggesting that Russia may also be facing a growing shortage of S-300 and S-400 interceptors.

It remains extremely difficult to confirm these reports from open sources, given that comparable insight into the Russian defense industry does not exist compared with the West. What is known, however, is that while Russia has likely procured tens of thousands of interceptors across the service lives of its Pantsir, S-300/400, and other air defense systems, consumption over the last several years has been very high, not least because Russia has repurposed thousands of interceptors into surface-to-surface missiles in an effort to further overwhelm Ukraine’s missile defense.

It is also documented that Russian interceptor and strike-weapon production both depend on Western-origin microelectronics sourced through the same narrow, sanctions-evading import networks, rather than dedicated, weapon-specific supply lines. There is also clear production overlap between offensive and defensive missiles in solid-rocket propellant and warhead explosives. Given Russia’s continued investment in expanding long-range drone, cruise missile, and ballistic missile production, it follows that this likely comes at the cost of proportional growth in its interceptor industry.

Strategy in the age of proliferated deep strike

Russia is increasingly experiencing the unforgiving logic of missile defense. Under most circumstances, the attacker retains an advantage over the defender in the missile domain, owing to the cost disadvantage of interceptors relative to offensive strike capabilities and the more complex system architecture of interceptors, at least in the context of legacy systems.

Ukraine has been fighting against this structural dynamic for years. The United States, Israel, and the Gulf states have experienced it firsthand in recent months. European states would face the same in a war against Russia.

Short of some technological breakthrough that comprehensively shifts the offense-defense balance in the missile domain back toward the defender, the age of proliferated deep strike, which the world is arguably entering now — characterized by the spread of deep missile and long-range drone arsenals to a growing range of state actors — will bring growing vulnerability across the international system. Unless wars and conflicts are settled quickly, within days or weeks of their onset, missile defense arsenals will not be able to keep pace with threats, at least not the more complex ones.