On August 22, Emmanuel Macron announced the delivery of new French interceptors and said it was “essential that all countries that have such capabilities in their possession also join this effort.” On August 23, in Kyiv, Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen stated that Western countries were perfectly capable of supplying more missiles: “all that is needed is political will.” On August 24, the Coalition of the Willing [a group of 35 nations, mainly European, supporting Ukraine against the Russian invasion] made strengthening Ukrainian air defense an “absolute priority.” The urgency of providing such systems is therefore now recognized at the highest level.
We therefore call on European states that hold stocks of interceptor missiles to transfer them to Ukraine without delay. These missiles are already available. Their transfer can therefore have an immediate effect, unlike capabilities that we still need to build. Every week of delay is paid for in civilian lives.
In July, Russia fired 195 ballistic missiles at Ukraine: because there were not enough interceptors, only 15% were intercepted, according to the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense. In August, the situation deteriorated further, and Ukrainian defenses remain unable to stop all the salvos striking cities, hospitals and energy infrastructure. On July 29, [Ukrainian President] Volodymyr Zelensky requested 300 additional interceptors to get through the winter. Yet Ukraine is expected to receive only 264 Patriot interceptors over the whole of 2026, compared with 675 in 2023 and 364 in 2025. The need for a single winter therefore exceeds the deliveries expected for an entire year.
Washington will not provide Ukraine with the volume of Patriot missiles it needs, and [U.S. President] Donald Trump has reversed the promise made to Volodymyr Zelensky to authorize their production under license. Since the beginning of the war, on February 24, 2022, Europe has been measuring the price of its hesitations. It must not repeat today, with interceptor missiles, the delays that have marked so many other deliveries. The intensification of Russian strikes now makes this imperative: the interceptors are available, they can protect lives today, so let us deliver them without delay.
A staggering imbalance
It will be argued that by giving up our stocks, we are reducing our own security margins. The objection appears legitimate. But these stocks, designed for peacetime, would not be enough to sustain a high-intensity war. Vladimir Putin has been testing us for months through a war that does not speak its name: the eastern flank was hit first, but Russia is now putting all of Europe to the test. On July 13, France officially attributed to the FSB [Russia’s domestic intelligence service] persistent cyberespionage activities targeting French entities, particularly in defense, diplomacy, justice and technology. Germany has just officially attributed to Russia the attempted drone attack at Leipzig airport. Our security is directly at stake. Every hesitation to arm Ukraine is read by Moscow as a weakness. The best response remains firmness: giving Ukraine the means to hold out.
To do this, Europe must move beyond the logic of one-off announcements. Every country holding such systems — Germany, Spain, France, Greece, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Romania and Sweden — must commit a defined share of its stocks according to a timetable known in advance. This timetable, revised quarterly within the framework of meetings of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group, would make it possible to know the volumes actually available and to plan their replacement. Ukraine would know what it can count on; our industries would know what they need to produce. Every missile delivered must trigger an order for a replacement.
This mechanism is all the more necessary because our production capacity remains far behind what is needed. This industrial weakness is glaring today. Europe will not produce its first Patriots in Bavaria until 2027; the highly mobile SAMP/T NG air defense system is itself gradually entering service, but its Aster 30 B1NT missile will not be delivered until 2027. At the same time, Russia was already producing around 800 to 1,000 ballistic missiles in 2025 and, according to Volodymyr Zelensky, is aiming for a capacity of up to 1,300 per year. The imbalance is staggering. It requires a massive increase in the production rate of interceptors, but also of drones and counter-drone systems, so that tomorrow we are not using missiles costing several million dollars against Russian devices costing only a few thousand.
The Coalition of the Willing has made Ukrainian air defense an “absolute priority”: it now remains to translate this into action. The interceptors are in our reserves; sending them depends only on political will, the very will our leaders say they possess. Let them prove it.
Signatories: Guillaume Ancel, former officer, author; Hélène Conway-Mouret, Socialist senator representing French citizens living abroad, vice-president of the Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defense and Armed Forces; Vincent Desportes, French Army general (2S), former director of the École de Guerre; Aurélien Duchêne, geopolitics and defense consultant; Emmanuel Dupuy, president of the Institut prospective et sécurité en Europe; Robin Gastaldi, author and specialist in armaments issues; Anne Genetet, member of parliament (Renaissance) representing French citizens living abroad, former minister; Anne Marleix, administrator of the association Pour l’Ukraine, pour leur liberté et la nôtre; Nicolas Tenzer, specialist in geostrategic issues; Xavier Tytelman, aviation and defense consultant; Olivier Védrine, administrator of the Jean Monnet association.
Opinion piece drafted by the association Pour l’Ukraine, pour leur liberté et la nôtre !
On the Le Monde website:
www.lemonde.fr/idees/article/2026/09/08/chaque-hesitation-de-l-europe-a-armer-l-ukraine-est-lue-par-moscou-comme-une-faille_6768128_3232.html
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