{"id":326301,"date":"2026-04-23T05:30:40","date_gmt":"2026-04-23T05:30:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=326301"},"modified":"2026-04-24T07:35:09","modified_gmt":"2026-04-24T07:35:09","slug":"ukraines-patriot-crews-are-rationing-missiles-mid-attack-ukraines-air-force-confirms-interceptor-missile-shortage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=326301","title":{"rendered":"Ukraine\u2019s Patriot crews are rationing missiles mid-attack \u2014 Ukraine\u2019s Air Force confirms interceptor missile shortage"},"content":{"rendered":"

Yuri Zoria \u2013 Euromaidanpress April 16, 2026<\/strong><\/h1>\n

Ukraine’s Patriot missile stocks are critically depleted, with crews rationing interceptors during active attacks to preserve what remains, the Air Force\u00a0said<\/a> on Ukrainian TV on 16 April. Ukrainian President Zelenskyy ordered the Air Force commander to urgently contact partners who had made delivery commitments.<\/p>\n

Ihnat’s remarks came after Russia\u00a0launched<\/a>\u00a0a mass attack on 15-16 April that killed at least 16 civilians \u2014 firing 44 missiles, including 19 ballistic, and 659 drones at Ukraine in 24 hours, with Ukraine intercepting 19 of 20 cruise missiles but only 8 of the ballistic ones. The US previously stopped donating weapons to Ukraine under Trump, making European allies purchase them for Kyiv instead \u2014 and Trump’s war on Iran has depleted American stockpiles, ruling out resupply from Washington for now.<\/p>\n

Crews counting shots: two of eight missiles left<\/strong><\/h3>\n

A video shared<\/a> by Air Command West on 10 April showed a Patriot unit whose commander said crews were destroying ballistic targets with one interceptor instead of the standard two to four, to stretch dwindling stocks<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Ukraine’s Air Force communications chief, Colonel Yurii Ihnat, commented on the video, saying<\/a> on 16 April that the video showed the scale of the problem.<\/p>\n

Our soldiers serving on Patriot say there are empty containers \u2014 that in this specific launcher being shown, two of the eight missiles remain<\/em>,” Ihnat said.<\/p>\n

Crews are not firing at full capacity.<\/p>\n

“Our people are trained 24\/7 \u2014 not only to successfully repel ballistics, rationally using not several missiles, but trying to save them for later<\/em>,” Ihnat said. “The question right now is really about missiles \u2014 it is very serious<\/em>,” he said.<\/p>\n

Ihnat: Ballistic missile attacks are the Achilles heel<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Of the 19 ballistic missiles Russia fired last night, Ukraine’s air defenders intercepted fewer than half.<\/p>\n

“For us to shoot down more, we need both systems and missiles,”<\/em>\u00a0Ihnat\u00a0said<\/a>. “More Patriot missiles are needed \u2014 those who service them say so<\/em>.”<\/p>\n

Ihnat also noted that Ukraine’s crews have mastered the system at a level no other country has reached.<\/p>\n

“They perfectly understand that today they are the best in the world at operating this system and have the most experience, which they are ready to share with our Western partners,<\/em>” he said.<\/p>\n

Following the overnight attack, Zelenskyy\u00a0ordered<\/a> the Air Force commander to contact partners who had earlier made missile-delivery commitments<\/strong>. The President noted:<\/p>\n

“Another night proving that Russia does not deserve any easing of global policy or the lifting of sanctions.<\/em>“<\/p>\n

The supply squeeze: Iran and Trump<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Ukraine\u00a0uses<\/a>\u00a0roughly 60 Patriot interceptors per month. Germany scraped together 35 PAC-3 missiles from several European partners in March \u2014 about two weeks’ worth of coverage.<\/p>\n

US defense contractors\u00a0produce<\/a>\u00a0roughly 550 PAC-3 missiles annually \u2014 a figure that falls well short of combined global demand.<\/p>\n

Zelenskyy had earlier\u00a0said<\/a>\u00a0Ukraine faces a critical deficit of Patriot systems and missiles and that if the war continues, Kyiv will have even fewer weapons.<\/p>\n

Ballistic missiles are the category of Russian weapons\u00a0least<\/a>\u00a0covered by Ukraine’s air defenses, and Russia has been scaling up their use. Patriot \u2014 and to a limited extent the Franco-Italian SAMP\/T \u2014 are the\u00a0only<\/a>\u00a0systems Ukraine operates capable of intercepting them.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A Ukrainian Army spokesman confirmed that the stocks of Patriot interceptors \u2014 the only defence against Russian ballistic missiles \u2014 are critically low.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39262,"featured_media":263156,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[51,116],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-326301","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-Iran","category-ukraine"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/326301","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/39262"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=326301"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/326301\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":326302,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/326301\/revisions\/326302"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/263156"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=326301"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=326301"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=326301"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}