Will Ukraine survive without American weapons?

^{Photo: Getty Images}
The US military assistance to Ukraine, which has been provided for three years of a large-scale war, may be suspended. In any case, US President Donald Trump does not exclude this option and believes that the burden of defense assistance to Kiev should fall on Europe. What does this mean for Ukraine?

The supply of American weapons to the Ukrainian armed forces continues under contracts signed during the presidency of President Joe Biden. According to the plan, the supply of such assistance should continue until the end of 2025. True, this does not exclude "unforeseen circumstances" that could suddenly interrupt them with the consent of the new head of the White House.

But according to Ukrainian officials, about 40 percent of the weapons on the front are already produced in Ukraine. The rest is still being supplied by European and American partners.

Last year alone, the Ukrainian military-industrial complex produced products worth $9 billion. At the same time, according to the calculations of the head of the Ministry of Strategic Industries, German Smetanin, the potential of the industrial-industrial complex is twice as high.

“Ukrainian enterprises were able to produce twice as much defense products last year, worth about $20 billion,” he says.

Currently, Kiev’s main efforts are aimed at replacing a large part of American weapons with its own production and with the help of European Union countries - so that if Trump were to stop helping Kiev, this would not lead to failure on the front.

Domestic production

A senior Ukrainian defense official explained to the BBC that Kiev is actually very dependent on the United States only for a few types of weapons.

For example, this does not apply to the main means of fire and the "most frequently used" on the front - reconnaissance, attack and FPV drones. The vast majority of them are assembled by private and state-owned companies in Ukraine.

^{Ukrainian enterprises produce a variety of weapons, from shells to cruise missiles. Photo: Ukrinform}
In addition, over the past six months, Ukrainians have been working to localize the production of all key components, primarily supplied from China and the United States.

This work is almost complete - 95 percent of drones manufactured in Ukraine are assembled from Ukrainian components.

According to Vladislav Belbas, head of Ukrainian Armor, one of the largest private defense companies in Ukraine, in addition to FPV drones, the military-industrial complex fully covers its needs for armored vehicles, mortars, artillery systems, as well as partially covers the need for ammunition.

“We are actively developing our own ammunition production - right now we produce more Soviet-caliber ammunition than all our Western partners,” Belbas noted.

The Ukrainian government is also actively working on creating joint ventures with European arms manufacturers. About a dozen such enterprises are already operating, which are engaged in the joint production of various types of weapons, from armored vehicles to missiles.

Servicing the American F-16 fighter jets supplied to Ukraine should not be a problem, Kiev officials say.

“There is only one company in Europe that specializes in this, so US assistance can be exchanged,” a Ukrainian official told the BBC.

The same is true of the Starlink satellite communications. Although the company itself and its owner Elon Musk do not plan to deprive the Ukrainian military of this technology, if this happens, Ukraine already has several alternative options. One of them was tested in the Kursk region, where Starlink does not operate.

Serious dependence

However, according to the Ukrainian official, dependence on the United States for air defense systems and missiles for them remains critical.

First of all, we are talking about the Patriot air defense system, which can shoot down ballistic and aeroballistic targets.

“We are working on a replacement. But there are few countries in the world that produce their own air defense systems. Therefore, it will be quite difficult to find a replacement for the Americans,” the BBC interlocutor notes.

^{The warhead of the Kinzhal missile, which was shot down over Kiev on May 12, 2023. Such missiles can only be shot down by Patriot anti-aircraft missile systems. Photo: Getty Images}
Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that Ukraine is developing a system similar to the American Patriot anti-aircraft missile system. According to BBC sources, this development is not yet completed, but work on it is “actively underway.”

In parallel, Ukrainian developers are trying to find other solutions for shooting down enemy air targets, which would allow the West to save on scarce air defense missiles.

In recent weeks, certain successes have been achieved in this regard. It was noted that for the second time, a Shahed-type strike drone, which Russia flies over Ukrainian cities every night, was successfully shot down by Ukrainian low-cost drone interceptors. This information was confirmed by two sources of the BBC.

Kiev has another serious dependence on American weapons manufacturers. We are talking about multiple launch rocket systems, primarily HIMARS, and ammunition for them.

In the summer of 2022, such systems proved to be very effective on the front line. Although in recent years their effectiveness has decreased somewhat due to the resistance of the Russian radio-electronic reactive system (which directly affected the accuracy of the American GMLRS missiles).

Nevertheless, the Himars systems still remain a formidable weapon in the hands of the Ukrainian military.

Missiles for HIMARS

Guided GMLRS missiles became the most important strike weapon of the Ukrainian armed forces in the summer of 2022. At that time, the Ukrainian army developed tactics for their use and carried out strikes on Russian ammunition depots.

This tactic was so effective that it forced the Russians to change the system of supplying units at the front.

These missiles, which can reach targets at a distance of up to 90 kilometers, are equipped with two types of warheads - high-explosive or cluster, as well as two types of targeting systems - satellite and inertial systems.

The high accuracy and power of the missile warhead are complemented by the speed of propagation - the wheeled HIMARS or tracked MLRS launchers allow for a strike in a short time after receiving reconnaissance data.

These launchers are used for ATACMS missiles with a flight range of up to 300 kilometers.

Although the Russian military has tried methods of countering GMLRS (they are fighting them with electronic warfare systems, interference with satellite navigation, or shooting them down with anti-aircraft missiles), it is impossible to completely protect against a strike - especially if it is delivered unexpectedly.

The problem is that the GMLRS, unlike other missiles, is produced only at Lockheed Martin plants in the United States. Expanding production is a difficult task, since the missile contains many high-tech parts.

In addition, the high efficiency of these missiles in Ukraine has increased their demand worldwide, and Ukraine now has many competitors.

There is no way to replace these missiles. Neither in quantity nor in quality.

Zenit missiles

Missiles for anti-aircraft missile systems, as well as the air defense system itself, are very important for Ukraine - the entire country's air defense depends on ground-based complexes. The bulk of these systems are made up of US anti-aircraft missile systems.

The importance of air defense missiles cannot be underestimated - they have become the most expendable material, and in addition, the consumption of such missiles has increased after Russia began to use dummy drones more and more actively.

In addition, the F-16 fighter jets that Ukraine receives from its European allies and uses against Russian cruise missiles also use American ammunition.

Ukraine needs Zenit missiles for two reasons. First, they help protect the country's infrastructure from destructive missile strikes.

Every time the Ukrainian military reports that it has shot down a Russian cruise missile, it means that at least two anti-aircraft missiles were fired at it - this is the usual practice of air defense systems.

^{The F-16 fighter jets of the Ukrainian armed forces are used to intercept air targets, and for this they also need American missiles. Photo: Getty Images}
It is likely that attempts were made to shoot down missiles that were not shot down, and at least two anti-aircraft missiles were used for each attempt.

In some cases, for example, when repelling a Russian Kinzhal hypersonic missile or an Iskander ballistic missile, only the use of PAC-3 missiles from the American Patriot air defense system may be effective.

For several months, Russia has been using special dummy drone targets to load air defense forces during covert strikes with long-range drones.

Just as Ukrainian fighter jets fight cruise missiles, they have learned to fight drones with the help of aviation - attack and transport helicopters, and even light aircraft armed with light machine guns.

Projectiles

Tactical drones, primarily FPV drones, have become one of the most effective types of weapons on the front.

With the advent of drones controlled by a thin fiber-optic cable, they have become less vulnerable to electronic warfare systems. Such drones can stop the attack of an armored convoy, they can even hunt down individual soldiers.

For the Ukrainian armed forces, which are experiencing a serious shortage of personnel, FPV drones have become a real salvation, as they allow them to maintain defense even in the face of numerical superiority from the Russians.

In many areas of the front line, positions are separated by a strip of several kilometers. And during the attack, it is necessary to cover this distance to reach enemy positions.

However, drones also have their own drawbacks. First, each drone is controlled by a separate operator, and therefore the mass use of drones depends on the number of operators.

Secondly, the production of drones in Ukraine is limited by the amount of explosives - there are simply not enough charges.

Therefore, conventional artillery shells remain the most important means of striking in the war and one of the most demanded resources. If there is a drone to direct strikes in the air, the accuracy of modern howitzers is sufficient to destroy various targets.

Each 155-millimeter M107 shell used by the Ukrainian armed forces contains a little less than seven kilograms of explosives, and its body consists of 36 kilograms of steel fragments.

Ammunition supplies from America are crucial for Ukraine, but since 2022, Ukraine's coalition of partner states (the Ramstein Group) has significantly expanded its ammunition production.

Worst-case scenario

Initially, the cessation of American aid to Ukraine was seen as one of the worst-case scenarios, but now it has become more likely and it is necessary to prepare for it.

Military experts interviewed by the Wall Street Journal made rather alarming, if not apocalyptic, predictions.

"We can afford to give Europe another year, maybe six months or a year, to increase ammunition production [...] We may suffer losses, we may lose part of the territory. But despite the difficulties, we have no choice but to fight," said Mykola Beleskov, a senior analyst at the Ukrainian charity foundation "Return to Life."

“Although Europe could theoretically reach the level of US spending, I do not see the possibility of providing the entire range of necessary weapons, and in some important categories, such as air defense missiles, there will soon be a problem of quantity,” says Oscar Jönsson, an expert at the Swedish Defense University.

Replacing air defense missiles is impossible. Increasing their production is also not an easy task - in addition to the purely technological difficulties associated with setting up new production, there are also investment and organizational problems.

From an economic point of view, the European Union is a unique structure, which differs from the United States or Russia in that it does not have a single national military industry.

Although the Europeans will have to solve the issues of increasing production at the same time, they are trying to do this simultaneously with the reform of the military-industrial complex.

While these complex processes are still far from being completed, the Ukrainians are managing to find more effective solutions by replacing artillery and even air defense systems on the front with new types of drones, that is, using methods they are already good at. Follow “Zamin” news on “Telegram”