ANALYSIS: Putin’s Iskander, Weapon of Terror—and Why the West Must Respond

Introduction: The Night Putin Chose Terror Over Peace

A Message Sent to the Whole World

On the night of June 16-17, 2025, as G7 leaders met to discuss peace in Ukraine, Vladimir Putin chose to respond with 440 drones and 32 missiles. The attack struck Kyiv, Odessa, Zaporizhzhia, Chernihiv, and several other oblasts, killing at least 14 people in Kyiv alone and wounding hundreds more. This was not a miscalculation. It was a deliberate act of state terrorism, orchestrated to humiliate Western leaders and break Ukrainian will.

Ukraine's Foreign Ministry put it bluntly: Putin deliberately ordered this attack during the G7 summit to make Western leaders appear helpless. Among the weapons used: Iskander-M ballistic missiles, the system that for years has represented the backbone of Russia's long-range strike capability. To understand the Iskander is to understand Moscow's strategy of terror.

The Context of a Planned Escalation

The night of June 16-17 was not an isolated event. Throughout June 2025, Russia had intensified its combined strikes: Shahed drones, Iskander-M missiles, Iskander-K cruise missiles, hypersonic Kinzhals, and Kalibrs. Each wave was designed to saturate Ukrainian defenses, exhaust Patriot interceptor stocks, and demoralize the civilian population. On June 5, Ukrainian forces successfully destroyed Iskander launchers from the 26th Missile Brigade in Klintsy, Bryansk region—a rare and symbolic success. Putin responded by hitting even harder.

Ukraine's Foreign Ministry described the June 16-17 attack as one of the largest since the start of Russia's full-scale invasion and called on the international community to take concrete steps, including strengthening sanctions, lowering the Russian oil price cap from 60 to 30 dollars, and providing more Patriot, NASAMS, and IRIS-T systems to Ukraine.

The Iskander-M: Portrait of a Weapon Designed to Kill

A Missile That Refuses to Fly Straight

The Iskander-M—official designation 9K720—is a short-range ballistic missile that was designed from the start to be difficult to intercept. Its official range is about 500 kilometers, although NATO experts and independent analysts estimate it could reach up to 700 kilometers or more, especially since Russia withdrew from the INF Treaty in 2019. At its peak, it reaches a speed of Mach 7 to Mach 10, or between 8,600 and 12,000 kilometers per hour.

But what makes it particularly formidable is not its raw speed. It is its quasi-ballistic trajectory. Unlike a classic ballistic missile that follows a predictable parabolic curve, the Iskander-M performs evasive maneuvers in its terminal phase. It can execute steep dives, lateral shifts, and deploy radar decoys to confuse interception systems like the Patriot. Ukrainian Air Force spokesperson Colonel Yurii Ihnat confirmed this in May 2025: "The missile no longer flies in a straight line—it performs evasive maneuvers."

Destructive Capacity and Surgical Precision

The Iskander-M carries a 480-kilogram warhead of high-explosive fragmentation, or penetrating variants to punch through reinforced concrete bunkers. Its precision is less than 5 meters CEP (circular error probable), thanks to its guidance system combining GLONASS, inertial navigation, and optical terrain-mapping targeting. It is a weapon capable of destroying a nine-story apartment building—as was the case on June 16-17 in Kyiv, on Václav Havel Boulevard in the Solomianskyi District, where an entire section of a residential building was annihilated.

Two main variants of the system exist: the Iskander-M, which fires ballistic missiles (9M723), and the Iskander-K, which fires R-500 cruise missiles with a range that can reach 1,500 to 2,000 kilometers. These two platforms share the same mobile launcher vehicle, which complicates their detection and preemptive destruction.

The Industrial Production of Terror: The Numbers That Terrify

An Assembly Line That Never Stops

In June 2025, Ukrainian intelligence (HUR) estimated that Russia had stockpiled approximately 580 Iskander-M and KN-23 ballistic missiles (the North Korean equivalent). In just six weeks—May to early July 2025—this stock had dropped to about 300 units, according to data shared with Liga. This represents an expenditure of 88 ballistic missiles in May and June alone, of which 23 were intercepted by Ukrainian defenses. The Votkinsk plant, the primary supplier for the Russian arsenal, was producing about 700 Iskander-M per year in 2024, compared to 250 in 2023—nearly a threefold increase in twelve months.

By 2026, the production rate was estimated at 60 Iskander-M per month, according to data from Colonel Oleksandr Zaruba, a senior researcher at the Ukrainian State Research Institute for Armament Testing. This cadence significantly exceeds that of the PAC-3 MSE interceptors produced by Lockheed Martin—about 51 to 52 units per month at the 2025 rate. Russia is therefore producing ballistic missiles faster than the West produces the interceptors capable of shooting them down. This is a structural imbalance, and it is deliberate.

The Votkinsk Plant and the Network of Bypassed Sanctions

The Kyiv Independent revealed in June 2025 that the Votkinsk plant had recruited 2,500 additional workers, built new buildings, and imported specialized manufacturing equipment from China, Taiwan, and Belarus via private Russian intermediaries. This equipment is at the heart of the production of Iskander-M, Iskander-K, and Yars and Bulava ICBMs. Analysis of internal plant documents showed that the Russian Ministry of Defense had ordered parts for the Bulava ICBM missile in March 2022 worth 13 million dollars to be delivered by 2024.

According to Ukrainian military intelligence (GUR), by mid-2025 Russia had built a stock of approximately 600 Iskander-M and 300 Iskander-K—a stockpile sufficient to maintain the current strike rate for about two years. The ISW confirmed that this expansion of the defense industrial base is part of clear preparation for a prolonged war, or even a future conflict with NATO.

The Role of North Korea: The Partnership of Death

The KN-23: The North Korean Missile Striking Ukraine

Since late 2023, Russia has integrated North Korean-made KN-23 ballistic missiles—also known as KN-23A and KN-24—into its strikes against Ukraine. These missiles, developed by Pyongyang as Iskander-M equivalents, possess several notable characteristics: a warhead that can reach one ton, a range of about 800 kilometers—greater than that of the Iskander-M—and Western-sourced components according to CNN analyses published in November 2024. The Multilateral Sanctions Monitoring Team (MSMT) confirmed in May 2025 that North Korea had supplied Russia with at least 100 ballistic missiles in direct violation of United Nations Security Council resolutions.

These transfers are not symbolic. According to Ukrainian Air Force data, by the end of 2024, KN-23 missiles represented one-third of all ballistic launches against Ukraine. A North Korean Hwasong-11 type missile striking Kharkiv in January 2024 was formally confirmed by UN experts. Analysts from Conflict Armament Research documented five missiles of North Korean origin on Ukrainian territory in 2024. In exchange for this military support, Moscow has transferred anti-aircraft defense systems to Pyongyang, including at least one Pantsir vehicle, and advanced electronic warfare systems.

Russia-North Korea Technological Hybridization

Militarnyi reported in June 2026 an alarming discovery: Russia has integrated technological solutions from the KN-23 into its modernized Iskander-M. Specifically, the Russian missile has been equipped with the updated 9B899 module, which releases decoys, chaff reflectors, and heat traps during the terminal phase. The onboard systems are adapted to operate in active scanning mode and detect blind spots in air defense radars. This is no longer just a question of arms transfers—it is true military co-engineering between two partner regimes in the project to destroy Ukraine.

North Korean production itself is accelerating. Kim Jong-un ordered a 2.5-fold increase in the production of Bulsae-4 anti-tank missiles used by Russia against Ukrainian forces. According to Ukraine, Russia had received 148 KN-23 in 2024 and expected to receive 150 more in 2025. A senior official from the Ukrainian GUR confirmed to the Kyiv Independent that Russia is preparing for a long war and is building up reserves of missiles of all categories.

Iranian Complicity: Drones That Saturate Defenses

The Shahed: The Poor Man's Weapon Turned Mass Weapon

If the Iskander-M is the weapon of precision, the Shahed-136 drones (rebranded as Geran-2 in the Russian version) are the weapon of saturation. Designed in Iran and transferred to Russia in industrial quantities since 2022, these low-cost kamikaze drones have transformed aerial warfare. During the single night of June 16-17, 2025, Russia launched approximately 440 drones of the Shahed type and decoys, of which Ukraine managed to neutralize 428. But the remaining 12 were enough to cause considerable damage in a dozen regions.

The strategy is clear and documented: use Shahed drones en masse to saturate Ukrainian air defenses and exhaust Patriot interceptors, then launch Iskander-M and Kinzhal ballistic missiles into the gaps created. This tactic was reinforced by recent innovations—remote-controlled Geran-2 drones targeting specific facilities, such as the Kryvyi Rih thermal power plant in June 2026. Estonian intelligence confirmed a recurring pattern: Russia launches 60 to 70 drones for four or five days, then strikes with 350 to 450 drones simultaneously in a massive attack.

Iran, War Supplier and Strategic Partner

Russian dependence on Iranian drones raises fundamental strategic questions. Iran is not an opportunistic arms supplier—it is an ideological and strategic partner of Moscow in the project to destabilize the Western order. The supply network includes electronic components that investigators have traced back to Western companies—a biting irony that illustrates the gaping holes in sanctions regimes. The ISW has clearly established that the expansion of Russian production of Shahed drones and ballistic missiles is part of deliberate preparation for a prolonged war, potentially extended to a conflict with NATO.

The Russia-Iran-North Korea axis is therefore not a simple coincidence of geopolitical circumstances. It is a structured partnership of bypassing Western sanctions, technology sharing, and strategic alignment against the West. Zelensky has been saying it for years. The facts on the ground confirm it week after week.

Patriot vs. Iskander: The Invisible Arms Race

When Russian Software Challenges American Hardware

The Patriot MIM-104 system is Ukraine's main line of defense against Russian ballistic missiles. There are two variants of interceptors: the PAC-3 CRI and the PAC-3 MSE, the latter being the most capable thanks to its hit-to-kill kinetic destruction mechanism—no explosive warhead, just a high-speed collision. A single Patriot battery can theoretically carry up to 60 launchers equipped with PAC-3 MSEs, or 360 interceptors at full load.

But here is the problem: Ukraine, according to Defence Express, operates about 10 complete Patriot systems. American doctrine prescribes using two interceptors per ballistic target, sometimes up to four. With Russia launching 60 to 70 Iskander-M and KN-23 missiles per month, and a global production of PAC-3 MSE interceptors of about 51 to 52 units per month, the math is ruthless: Russia consumes Ukrainian defenses faster than the West can reconstitute them. And Colonel Ihnat confirmed it: a Patriot battery can only look in one direction at a time—it cannot engage targets at 360 degrees.

Russian Improvements: The Trajectory That Outsmarts the Algorithm

Defence Express published an in-depth analysis in October 2025 explaining the theories behind the drop in Ukrainian interception rates. The strongest thesis: Russia simply reprogrammed the Iskander-M flight profile to adopt a steeper terminal trajectory, reducing the interception window without changing the hardware. The Patriot calculates the interception point via software algorithm—a missile that dives steeper and faster short-circuits this calculation. Defence Express also points to the chronic shortage of interceptors: in some situations, Ukrainian operators are forced to use older GEM-T missiles against ballistic targets, a suboptimal solution that does not destroy the warhead but fragments it—with risks of ground damage.

The Ukrainian interception rate for Iskander-M and KN-23 fell from 37% in August 2025 to just 6% in September 2025, according to data compiled by the Resilience Information Center in London and analyzed by the Financial Times. On the single night of June 28-29, 2025—the largest series of strikes of the war with 537 aerial craft—Ukraine shot down only one of the seven Iskander-M launched. Zero of the four Kinzhals. The numbers speak for themselves.

Destroying Russian Launchers: The Strategy of Dismantling

Finding and Striking Patriot Batteries

Russia has developed a specific strategy to locate and destroy Ukrainian Patriot systems. On January 19, 2026, an Iskander-M missile struck near the village of Shevchenko in the Dnipropetrovsk region, destroying the AN/MPQ-65 radar of a Ukrainian Patriot battery—the brain of the system. Defence Ukraine documented that the method used consists of deploying reconnaissance drones to identify the characteristic radar activity of a Patriot battery, then launching an Iskander-M on a quasi-ballistic trajectory accelerating to hypersonic speed in its terminal phase.

Colonel Zaruba confirmed in June 2026 that the modernized Iskander-M carries a countermeasure system that mimics the missile's signature to overload Ukrainian radars. The new version, provisionally called Iskander-1000, would aim for a range of 1,000 kilometers thanks to higher-energy fuel. A small series of 18 units was reportedly ordered for 2025 at 221 million rubles per unit—about 2.5 million dollars. It is a missile designed explicitly to make NATO defenses obsolete before a conflict even begins.

Ukraine Strikes Back: The Preemptive Strike on Klintsy

On June 5, 2025, Ukrainian forces demonstrated that it was possible to strike Iskander launchers before they fire. In coordination with the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU), they executed a precision strike on positions of the Russian 26th Missile Brigade in Klintsy, in the Bryansk region, about 40 kilometers from the Ukrainian border. One launcher detonated, and two others were seriously damaged. According to the OSINTtechnical blog, Russian soldiers were killed and wounded. Zelensky personally praised the operation: "Three Iskander systems were destroyed—it was the elimination of pure killers."

Militarnyi described this event as the first documented successful case of a Russian operational-tactical missile system since the beginning of the 2022 full-scale invasion. But this tactical victory remains fragile. With more than 60 launchers deployed near Ukrainian borders according to the HUR, and production of new launchers underway, Ukraine must transform its occasional successes into doctrine. This requires deep-strike capabilities—which the West is still slow to provide without restrictions.

The June 16-17 Attack: Anatomy of a Mass Attack

Kyiv Under Fire During the G7

The night of June 16-17, 2025, will remain one of the deadliest of the war for the Ukrainian capital. Russia launched a total of 472 aerial craft including 440 drones and 32 missiles, and Ukrainian defenses managed to neutralize 428 of them. But the 44 that got through caused havoc. A ballistic missile directly hit a nine-story residential building on Václav Havel Boulevard in the Solomianskyi District, entirely destroying a section of the building. Fourteen people died in Kyiv, and 117 were injured. An additional woman was killed in Odessa. First responders recovered fragments of human bodies from the rubble.

Ukrainian Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko confirmed that 27 different sites in the capital had been hit, including residential buildings, educational institutions, and critical infrastructure. More than 1,900 tons of harmful substances were released into the atmosphere over Kyiv and its oblast in two days of combined attacks. The Ukrainian Prime Minister evacuated his staff to shelters. Meanwhile, in Lucerne, G7 leaders held press conferences.

Putin Lies, the Dead Bear Witness

On June 19, 2025, Vladimir Putin faced foreign journalists and, with a smile, claimed that Russia was only hitting "defense facilities" and not residential areas. He spoke of Ukraine's "demilitarization." These words were spoken two days after his missiles pulverized a civilian apartment building. Ukrainska Pravda documented this cynical response, paralleling it with the images of the rubble in Solomianskyi. The contradiction was not accidental—it was political. Putin knows his lies will be repeated in pro-Russian circles in the West, creating a fog of disinformation that dilutes moral responsibility.

The number of civilian casualties in June 2025 reached a record on three years: 232 killed and 1,343 injured according to the UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine. This is not an abstract statistic. These are people who were sleeping in their apartments, who were working at night, who were watching their children. And Russia deliberately targeted these places while the heads of state of the free world discussed peace in Swiss hotels.

The Russia-China Axis: The Machine Tools That Manufacture Death

Beijing in the Russian Military Supply Chain

China has not sent soldiers to Ukraine. It doesn't need to. It has done something potentially more dangerous in the long term: it has provided Russia with the industrial precision equipment necessary to produce ballistic missiles on a large scale despite Western sanctions. Militarnyi documented in June 2025 that the Votkinsk plant had imported manufacturing equipment via Russian intermediaries from China, Taiwan, and Belarus. This equipment is at the heart of the production of Iskander-M, ICBMs, and other strategic missiles.

The ISW confirmed that China is the main source of equipment allowing Russia to bypass Western sanctions on dual-use goods. Analysis of components recovered from Russian missile debris in Ukraine revealed the presence of semiconductors, integrated circuits, and electronic components manufactured in China, but also Western-origin parts transiting through third countries. According to Colonel Zaruba, the modernized Iskander-M of 2026 contains 90% of Russian components, but Western elements are still present—an indication that sanctions-evasion supply chains remain active.

The Long-Term Threat of the Sino-Russian Axis

To understand why China is the deepest threat in this axis, one must look beyond the Ukrainian conflict. Beijing would never directly send weapons to Moscow—the risks of secondary sanctions are too great. But by providing the moyens de production, China allows Russia to reconstitute and increase its arsenal at a speed that Russian industrial capabilities alone would never have permitted. It is a strategy of supporting proxy war, carefully calibrated to stay below the threshold of direct action while maximizing strategic impact.

ISW analysts are explicit: the construction of an expansive defense industrial base in Russia goes far beyond the needs of the Ukrainian conflict. It is preparation for a potentially expanded future conflict against NATO. In this scenario, Iskander-M missiles—perhaps in their 1,000 km-range Iskander-1000 version—would be deployed against targets in Central and Eastern Europe. Baltic capitals, NATO logistics bases, supply corridors. Ukraine is the laboratory. Europe is the intended final target.

Zelensky Facing the Arsenal of Death: Resilience as Doctrine

A President Who Refuses to Surrender

Volodymyr Zelensky has transformed what could have been a psychological defeat—missiles hitting his capital while the world watches—into a resounding call to action. After the night of June 16-17, he immediately demanded additional deliveries of Patriot, NASAMS, IRIS-T, and interceptor munitions from the West. He asked for a reduction in the Russian oil price cap from 60 to 30 dollars. He called for tougher sanctions in the energy and banking sectors. This is not a broken man. He is a leader who understands that every attack is also an opportunity to push the West to act.

Zelensky personally reported that since the beginning of the full-scale invasion, Russia had launched 28,743 Shahed drones against Ukraine—2,736 in June 2025 alone. These raw numbers illustrate the industrial scale of the Russian terror campaign. He also publicly celebrated the destruction of the three Iskander launchers in Klintsy, sending a message to his citizens: Ukraine can strike back. This posture of active resilience is essential to Ukrainian resistance—and it is made possible, in part, by Western support.

The Request for Air Defense: A Moral Imperative

Ukraine needs more. This is not a request; it is an arithmetic fact. With Russia producing 60 Iskander-M per month and having stocks of 300 ballistic missiles after spending half its stock in six weeks, and with interception rates collapsing below 10%, Ukraine must receive more PAC-3 MSE interceptors. Each interceptor costs about 5 million dollars. Every residential building reconstructed after an Iskander strike costs infinitely more—in money and human lives.

During the large strike on the night of June 14-15, 2026, Zelensky himself noted that Ukrainian defenses had performed better thanks to a recent delivery of interceptor missiles for the advanced Patriot system: "There were enough missiles to shoot down the ballistics." This sentence summarizes everything. When interceptors arrive, Ukrainian aircraft and Patriot batteries shoot down Iskanders. When stocks run low, buildings fall.

Lessons for NATO: When Ukraine Becomes the Laboratory of the Future

What Kyiv Learned That NATO Didn't Know

The conflict in Ukraine has produced an unmatched amount of real-time data on the performance of ballistic missiles, air defense systems, and saturation drones in a real war context. NATO analysts are closely observing the results of Patriot vs. Iskander-M engagements, the limits of radar capabilities against quasi-ballistic trajectories, and the relative effectiveness of different interceptors. This involuntary laboratory costs Ukrainian lives, but it produces strategic lessons that will shape Western defense doctrine for the next two decades.

Defence Express was the first to document that the problem of falling interception rates is not entirely due to mysterious "Russian upgrades," but results in part from the combination of interceptor shortages, selective Russian targeting avoiding Patriot-covered areas, and the use of older GEM-T missiles where PAC-3 MSEs would be needed. These technical nuances have direct operational implications: NATO must invest massively in PAC-3 MSE production, in complementary systems like the Franco-Italian SAMP/T NG, and in a layered air defense architecture that does not depend on a single system.

Emerging European Solutions

Faced with the limits of the Patriot—whose deliveries are constrained by American stocks and Washington's geopolitical priorities—Europe is developing alternatives. The Franco-Italian SAMP/T NG (Eurosam) system was the subject of successful qualification firings in October 2024, July 2025, and December 2025. President Macron confirmed the sending of eight SAMP/T NG systems to Ukraine, worth approximately 3 billion euros. The dual purpose is acknowledged: Kyiv gets anti-ballistic coverage, and Paris and Rome get combat validation data the platform could never have obtained otherwise.

The IRIS-T SLM and SLS from Diehl Defence have reached a reported interception rate close to 100% on more than 250 engagements. Diehl has invested 1.5 billion euros in expanding its capacity, aiming for sixteen batteries per year by 2028. These European successes are important not only for Ukraine but to signal to Moscow that Western democracies are rebuilding their industrial defense capacity. This is precisely what Putin hoped to avoid.

Russian Arms Production vs. Western Capabilities: The Imbalance We Can No Longer Ignore

The Numbers of a Dangerous Asymmetry

Data compiled by Defence Express and the ISW in 2026 paint a worrying picture. Every month Russia produces: 60 Iskander-M ballistics, 40 RM-48U missiles for S-300/400, 10 Kinzhal aeroballistics, and up to 3 Zirkon hypersonics. Total: approximately 113 missiles requiring Patriot-class interception per month. In contrast, Lockheed Martin produced about 620 PAC-3 MSEs per year in 2025, or 51 to 52 per month—distributed among all Patriot operators worldwide, with priority given to the United States.

Even if Washington decided to redirect all its interceptor production to Ukraine—which it will not—it would not be enough, given the rule of using two interceptors per target. The situation has been worsened by American operations against Iran, which exhausted between 45% and 61% of available interceptor stocks. The U.S. Secretary of Defense had to personally coordinate Patriot missile deliveries to Ukraine with Donald Trump—a troubling illustration of the fragility of the Western defense supply chain against Russian production rates.

The Economics of Terror

A PAC-3 MSE interceptor costs about 5 million dollars. An Iskander-M missile costs about 2.5 million dollars. For every Iskander-M launched, Ukraine must theoretically spend 10 million dollars in interceptors to shoot down just one (two PAC-3 MSEs at 5 million each). And in saturation scenarios, this ratio can be much worse. Russia understands this economic asymmetry—which is why it deliberately combines ballistic missile salvos with hundreds of cheap drones. It forces Ukraine to use 5-million-dollar interceptors for drones that cost 20,000 to 50,000 dollars.

It is an economic war of attrition as much as a military one. And the West, if it does not radically restructure its defense production, will lose this war of attrition even without ever firing a single shot. Ukrainian Defense Minister Rustem Umerov said it clearly after the night of June 16-17: Ukraine needs sustained and predictable support, not improvised emergencies.

What This War Means for Tomorrow’s World Order

A Precedent Shaping the Future

What is at stake in Ukraine is not just the fate of a country of 44 million people. It is the most serious test of the solidity of the international order based on rules since World War II. If Russia succeeds in imposing its will on Ukraine through brute force—by deliberately hitting residential buildings with precision missiles while democracies hesitate—then the message sent to every revisionist power on the planet is crystal clear: violence works, borders are negotiable by force, and the West always retreats.

The Russia-Iran-North Korea-China axis is watching closely. Every non-intercepted Iskander strike in Kyiv is data in Beijing's strategic calculation for Taiwan, Tehran's for the Middle East, Pyongyang's for the Korean peninsula. The ISW has explicitly assessed it: Russia is preparing for a prolonged war and a potential future expanded conflict against NATO. This is not paranoia—it is a sober reading of the signals Moscow has been emitting since 2022.

Trump, the West, and the Necessary Evil

The Trump administration created real tensions with Ukraine over the terms of a ceasefire and the limits of military support. This is no secret. But it would be wrong to present Washington as indifferent. Deliveries of PAC-3 MSEs continued—in insufficient quantities, certainly, but they continued. And Trump's relative firmness against America's adversaries—Russia, China, Iran—remains an asset for the Western order, even if its expression is erratic. Trump is a necessary evil for the West: unpredictable in his methods, but generally aligned with the interest of preventing Russian or Chinese domination of Eurasia.

The real question is not Trump. It is Europe's ability to take charge of its own defense, to produce the interceptors Ukraine needs, to cut the supply routes fueling Russian missile factories. Europe has the industrial means. What it still lacks is the collective political will to deploy them at the speed required by the urgency of the moment.

Conclusion: Putin’s Arsenal Can Be Defeated—But We Must Want It

What the Facts Tell Us

The Iskander-M is a formidable weapon. Russian ballistic missile production exceeds Ukraine's interception capacity. The Russia-Iran-North Korea-China axis provides drones, missiles, and machine tools at an industrial rate. Ukrainian interception rates fluctuate dangerously depending on available interceptor stocks. And Putin has demonstrated, night after night, that he is ready to strike civilians without limit or remorse. These facts are documented, sourced, and verifiable. They leave no room for moral ambiguity or political procrastination.

But the facts also tell us something else: when the interceptors arrive, the missiles are shot down. When Ukraine strikes launchers in Russian territory, operations are disrupted. When defenses are strengthened, interception rates go back up. Defeat of the Iskander is possible—it is technically and operationally demonstrable. What is needed is the volonté politique de l'Occident de fournir les outils nécessaires de façon continue, prévisible et suffisante. Not in drips and drabs. Not under the pressure of a particularly deadly strike. Continuously, as a long-term policy.

The Choice the West Must Make

The question is not whether Ukraine can survive. Ukraine has survived. It is surviving. It resists with a tenacity that commands the respect of anyone looking at the situation honestly. The real question is whether the West will choose to live up to its own stated values. Defending national sovereignty. Protecting civilians. Resisting armed aggression. These principles were etched into charters and treaties after 1945 precisely because a generation had paid the price of their absence.

Putin launched his Iskander-Ms during the G7. He watched the leaders of the free world hold their press conferences and calculated they would not act strongly enough. So far, he has been right. The night of June 16-17, 2025, must be a turning point—not because the dead demand it (they can no longer demand anything), but because the living, Ukrainians and Westerners alike, still have a choice. This choice has a name: providing Ukraine with the air defenses it needs to survive, now.

Signed Maxime Marquette, columnist

Sources

Primary Sources

Ukrainska Pravda — Ukrainian Ministry of Foreign Affairs: Putin attacked Ukraine during G7 to appear strong (440 drones, 32 missiles, night of June 16-17, 2025) — June 17, 2025

Institute for the Study of War (ISW) — Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, June 16, 2025 — June 16, 2025

Militarnyi — General Staff: Ukrainian forces destroy Iskander launchers (26th Brigade, Bryansk) — June 5, 2025

Secondary Sources

Kyiv Independent — Russia upgrades Iskander ballistic missiles, making them more difficult to intercept — May 25, 2025

Euromaidan Press / ISW — Russia: stockpile of 13,000 missiles, goal of complete destruction of Ukraine — June 4, 2025

Defence Express — Russia’s alleged Iskander upgrade against Patriot: four theories analyzed — October 12, 2025

Euromaidan Press — Ukrainian intelligence: Iskander-M/KN-23 ballistic arsenal shrunk by 50% since May — July 13, 2025

Militarnyi — Russia ramps up Iskander production with Chinese-made machine tools — June 25, 2025