Europe promises “secret” weapons for Ukraine, but cannot keep up with Russia's rocket rain. What military experts recommend
While the Russian Federation intensifies its attacks on Ukraine, the European production of missile defense systems remains behind, feeding calls for a change of strategy – from defense to offensive actions against Russian military infrastructure, reports Defense Express.
Ukraine should move the war on the territory of Russia/photo: Archive
According to the source, Europe's interception capacity is not sufficient to counteract the accelerated pace of Russian attacks, especially in the context in which, only in the first half of 2025, Russia launched an estimated number of 1,020 ballistic missiles, including iskander and Kinjal.
An increasing gap
Data quoted by the German publication Hartpunkt, provided by researcher Fabian Hoffmann, shows that the European states can intercep, on average, only about 300 ballistic missiles a year – a capacity below the current need.
Ukrainian military intelligence services claim that iskander missile production has increased by up to 40% in the first half of the year, clearly exceeding the reaction rate of the European Defense Industry.
This disproportion highlights the difficulties that Ukraine welcomes in maintaining an effective anti -aircraft defense and suggests that the current approach – saturation with defense systems – is no longer sustainable in front of an adversary that produces on an industrial scale.
From defense to offensive actions
According to Defense Express, it becomes more and more clear that Ukraine needs a paradigm change. Instead of trying to reject each rocket, an alternative strategy could aim to eliminate the source of threat – that is, factories, warehouses and logistics networks that supply Russian military effort.
This change would involve the delivery of offensive capabilities-long-range missiles or attack drones-which allow Ukraine to hit deep in the enemy territory, in an attempt to reduce constant pressure on civil and energy infrastructure.
“It all depends, in the end, why offensive means are willing to provide European partners – a particularly relevant issue in the context of speculation on a possible German secret weapon, if not even Taurus missiles.”notes the quoted analysts.
What can Europe offer
On July 24, the vice -president of the CDU parliamentary group in Bundestag, Johann Wadeph, said that Ukraine is to receive “secret” weapons meant to influence Russia's military capacity on its own territory. At the same time, the delivery of the controversial Taurus rockets was officially excluded.
Wadeph has stressed that the problem is not a financial one, but is more about the production capacity of the European defense industry, which is trying to adapt to an unprecedented rate of application.
Germany has confirmed that it will deliver five Patriot systems – the only ones capable of intercepting ballistic missiles – in partnership with the United States, following an agreement between the German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius, and his American counterpart, Pete Hegseth.
Berlin has also announced the sending of over 200,000 projectiles for Antidrone Gepard systems and financially supports the production of Ukrainian drones, intended for blows inside Russia.
