Zelensky Warns of Renewed Russian Ballistic Barrage, Urges Immediate Patriot Deliveries

Missile-defense panics are not new; in 1944 London raced to counter Germany’s V-2 rockets, and in 1991 Israel relied on U.S. Patriots against Iraqi Scuds—both episodes showed that defensive technology lags offensive innovation until foreign aid fills the gap. Zelensky’s appeal exposes a long-term trend: cheap, plentiful offensive munitions (drones, ballistic SRBMs) are eroding the deterrent value of scarce, expensive interceptors held by a handful of NATO states. The current scramble thus reinforces an emerging 21st-century asymmetry—manufacturing capacity, not battlefield performance, decides air-power contests. If partners deplete their own stocks or balk at years-long production queues, Ukraine may repeat the fate of previous front-line states that lost critical infrastructure before defenses arrived. On a 100-year arc, the episode illustrates how war’s center of gravity keeps shifting from trenches to cities’ power grids, making civilian energy supply as strategically decisive in 2026 as coal fields were in 1916.