Turkey’s Russian Missiles Could Defend Ukraine

Ukraine’s desperate struggle to repel Russia’s invasion depends on denying Russia air dominance. While Ukraine has preserved some air-defense capability, it lacks the means to hold off Russian air power indefinitely. Once Russia rules the Ukrainian skies, Ukrainian ground forces will be exceedingly vulnerable, as will supply lines of arms and aid from the West.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has begged the West for more aircraft and air defense. The onset of Russian air attacks on military airfields and training sites in western Ukraine, along with Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov’s warning that Western aid shipments are “legitimate targets,” demonstrates that Ukraine requires better long-range, high-altitude air defenses. Pentagon spokesman John Kirby recently noted that Ukraine needs new ground-based air-defense systems more than it needs Polish MiG-29s, the deal for which was scuttled after the Pentagon said it didn’t consider the deal “tenable.”

Ukraine has limited stocks of Soviet-era S-300 mobile missile systems. These weapons are effective but dated, and Ukraine has had to use them judiciously. Within the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, Bulgaria, Greece and Slovakia have S-300s, which could be transferred relatively quickly. Thomas Warrick at the Atlantic Council has suggested that the U.S. include S-300s as part of a lend-lease package for Ukraine, and NATO is reportedly exploring this idea.