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Kyiv, Ukraine – As Washington’s Middle Eastern allies use US-made Patriot air defence systems to shoot down Iranian missiles and drones, Ukraine is about to face a dire shortage of ammunition for them.

Experts have told Al Jazeera that Russian President Vladimir Putin is sure to exploit the shortage of pricey guided missiles the truck-mounted Patriots launch at machinegun speed to down his pride and joy, Russia’s ballistic missiles that he once declared were “indestructible”.

The Patriots were developed in the 1970s to down Soviet missiles whose modifications Russia still rains on Ukraine.

Their supply to Ukraine began in 2023 and was initially limited to several batteries stationed in the capital, Kyiv. The location of the systems was constantly changed to protect them from Russian attacks.

The Patriots “have undoubtedly been the most important defence element, especially for cities with more than a million residents, Kyiv in particular, even though they couldn’t intercept all Russian missiles,” Nikolay Mitrokhin of Germany’s Bremen University told Al Jazeera.

But a shortage underscores a deeper problem – poor defence of Ukraine’s infrastructure, including power generation and transmission stations, against Russian strikes, he added.

With or without the guided missiles, Ukraine’s energy infrastructure is “doomed,” because even though Russia would not dare strike Ukrainian nuclear power stations, the Patriot systems cannot protect all key transmission lines, he said.

“The key question is how to stop Russia from manufacturing and using missiles, not about how many more guided missiles or Patriot systems Ukraine needs,” he concluded.

The Patriots utilise advanced radars to detect targets flying at supersonic speeds and launch their guided missiles with the sound that resembles super-fast electronic beats – up to 32 missiles per minute.

But the noise – along with thunderous shockwaves that follow split-second, sun-bright explosions – made Ukrainians feel safe during harrowing, hours-long Russian assaults that have targeted civilian areas and involve hundreds of drones and dozens of missiles.

Within weeks after their deployment, the Patriots intercepted Russia’s Kinzhal (Dagger) intercontinental ballistic missiles that are launched by supersonic fighter jets and fly in the Earth’s stratosphere.

The interceptions disproved Putin’s earlier claims that the Kinzhals made any Western air defence systems “useless”.

The safety, however, came with a hefty price tag – each Patriot guided missile costs several million dollars, and their manufacturing never exceeded more than 900 units a year.

‘Tomorrow’s problem’

Some 800 guided missiles have been used to repel Iranian aerial attacks within just three days after Tehran began raining its missiles and drones on almost a dozen nations, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Thursday.

“Ukraine has never had this many missiles to repel attacks,” Zelenskyy said, reiterating his readiness to dispatch Ukrainian experts and drone interceptors to help Gulf nations counter the attacks.

The shortage of guided missiles is, however, not immediate and may occur in several weeks.

“This is not today’s problem, this is tomorrow’s problem,” Volodymyr Fesenko, head of the Kyiv-based Center for Applied Political Studies (Penta) think tank, told Al Jazeera.

But the problem may become catastrophic.

In recent days, Moscow stopped attacking Ukraine with drones and missiles – a sign of amassing them for massive raids in the near future, Fesenko said.

“Russia’s most obvious actions would be to bleed Ukraine’s stock of Patriot missiles dry to inflict maximal damage on us through massive missile attacks,” he said.

Kyiv already faces a less critical problem with the shortage of missiles for Western-supplied F-16 fighter jets that proved effective in downing Russian missiles.

“The problem is less critical, but also vital for us,” Fesenko said.

Ukraine has experienced a shortage of Patriot missiles before.

Last summer, when the US and Israel struck Iranian nuclear sites, the Pentagon stopped the Patriot missiles’ supply as it was “auditing” its own stocks.

The suspension of Patriot interceptors and HIMARS multiple rocket launchers left Ukrainian civilian infrastructure, including thermal power stations and transport hubs, more vulnerable to Russian attacks.

Russia’s tactics of indiscriminate aerial strikes have been tried and tested over the past four years.

Moscow starts an air raid with drones and decoy drones to make Ukrainian air defence units use as many Patriot missiles as possible.

It then launches several more waves of attack drones and ballistic and cruise missiles.

As to upcoming attacks, “the question is that this time, it won’t be energy infrastructure, but whatever other targets the Kremlin will want to choose”, Kyiv-based analyst Igar Tyshkevych told Al Jazeera.

He referred to devastating attacks on energy and central heating facilities that left millions of Ukrainians without power and heat this winter, triggering health problems and deaths from hypothermia.

Russia already targets sites unprotected by Patriots: Military expert

Meanwhile, Israel and the European nations that pledged to transfer their stock of Patriot missiles to Ukraine are reluctant to do so now.

“Considering the general instability, I don’t think that many nations will open up their stock and pass it on to us,” Tyshkevich said.

Since the supplies of Patriots began, the US-Russian technological battle has kept raging on, according to the former deputy head of Ukraine’s general staff of armed forces, who for decades specialised in air defence.

“There is a confrontation in engineering,” Lieutenant-General Ihor Romanenko told Al Jazeera.

“Russians change something, Americans together with our experts change something else, because remaining on the old [technological] level means losing the battle before it begins.”

Russian engineers “modified software making the [Iskander-M] missiles able to manoeuvre mid-air, and the modernisation largely complicated the operation of the few Patriot systems that we have to destroy them,” Romanenko said.

The Patriots, however, have not become a Ukraine-wide aegis against the Russian strikes.

Ukraine has fewer than a dozen batteries, while Kyiv said it needed at least 25.

Russians “already know that we have but a few Patriot batteries against their ballistic missiles, so they were hitting the sites that had not been covered by the Patriots, or where they had not been deployed,” Romanenko said.

Luckily, Ukraine has an alternative.

A handful of French-Italian SAMP/T systems with solid-fuel anti-aircraft missiles have been deployed to Ukraine since 2023 and showed the advantages of their radars and “engagement logic” with high-speed targets.

While a Patriot battery requires up to 90 support servicemen and takes half an hour to deploy, SAMP/Ts require about a dozen.

But their ability to down modified Russian missiles will have to be battle-tested, Romanenko said.

Meanwhile, Ukraine’s increasingly daring drone and missile strikes deep inside Russia destroy or damage their arm depots and plants producing drones and missiles.

The United States used Precision Strike Missiles (PrSMs) for the first time during its ongoing war with Iran, US Central Command (CENTCOM) said on Wednesday.

The war entered its seventh day on Friday, with attacks continuing across Iran and other countries in the Middle East.

CENTCOM stated in an X post that PrSMs provide an “unrivaled deep strike capability”.

“I just could not be prouder of our men and women in uniform leveraging innovation to create dilemmas for the enemy,” the post quoted Admiral Brad Cooper, head of CENTCOM.

It is unclear where these PrSMs were launched from, or which specific targets they hit in Iran.

So what is the PrSM, and why is it significant that it has been used by the US for the first time?

What are Precision Strike Missiles?

PrSMs are described as long-range precision strike missiles by their developer, the Maryland, US-headquartered defence firm Lockheed Martin, which delivered the first PrSMs to the US Army in December 2023.

PrSMs can hit targets ranging from 60km (37 miles) to more than 499km (310 miles) away, according to Lockheed Martin.

The company’s website adds that PrSMs are compatible with the MLRS M270 and HIMARS family of launchers, both also developed by Lockheed and used by both the United Kingdom and US armies.

MLRS stands for multiple-launch rocket systems, used to launch missiles. The UK sent a number to Ukraine in 2022. HIMARS stands for High Mobility Artillery Rocket System. In 2022, the US sent a number to Ukraine, as well.

M-142 HIMARS is a high-tech, lightweight rocket launcher that is wheel-mounted, giving it more agility and manoeuvrability on the battlefield. Each unit can carry six GPS-guided rockets, or larger missiles like Army Tactical Missile Systems (ATACMs) and PrSMs, which can be reloaded in about a minute with only a small crew.

Lockheed Martin adds that PrSMs can be rapidly developed. “We are ready to produce and deliver to meet the US Army’s accelerated timeline for this long-range precision fires priority,” the website says.

PrSMs feature “open systems architecture”, which means that it is easier to plug in new components, upgrade parts, or work with equipment from other companies. Similarly, they are “modular and easily adaptable”, enabling components to be switched around.

They also feature “IM energetic payload”, or Insensitive Munitions energetic payload, which makes explosions safer, the producer says. This means the warhead is made from explosives that are less likely to blow up accidentally if hit by fire, shrapnel or by accident, but still explode properly when triggered as intended.

What is different about the PrSMs?

PrSMs will ultimately replace the ATACMs currently being fired from the HIMARS launchers, significantly increasing their range from 300km (186 miles) to more than 499km (310 miles), without changing the vehicle carrying the missile.

PrSMs also offer double the “missile load” of ATACMs. While a HIMARS launcher is able to carry one ATACMS missile in its pod, it can carry two PrSMs per pod.

Does the PrSM give the US a strategic advantage?

CENTCOM confirmed that PrSMs have been used in the US and Israel’s attacks on Iran, codenamed Operation Epic Fury and launched on February 28.

CENTCOM posted a video of the PrSMs being launched from M142 High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems in an open desert terrain.

PrSMs do give the US military a boost for its pre-existing long-range capabilities.

Gulf countries such as Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Oman, specifically the Musandam Peninsula, which have military bases hosting US assets and troops, have at least some territory within 400km (250 miles) of Iran.

The US is using PrSMs in conjunction with other long-range missiles such as Low-Cost Unmanned Combat Attack System (LUCAS) one-way drones, MQ-9 Reaper drones, ATACMs and Tomahawk Cruise Missiles.

The range for LUCAS one-way drones is about 800km (500 miles), while the range for ATACMs is about 300km (186 miles) and the range for Tomahawk cruise missiles is about 1,600km (1,000 miles).

Why is the introduction of the PrSM significant?

The range of this missile is significant as it is likely that it would not have been permitted under the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty with Russia, which the Trump administration withdrew the US from in 2019. This is because it can exceed the maximum 500km (310-mile) range the treaty imposed on certain land-launched missiles.

The treaty was signed in 1987 by US and Soviet Union leaders Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev. It sought to eliminate the presence of land-based nuclear missiles and medium-range arsenals between 500km and 5,500km (310 and 3500 miles) from Europe.

The US suspension of the treaty allowed Washington to resume development of its own medium-range, land-based arsenal.

Following the US suspension, Russia invited the US to reciprocate in a unilateral moratorium on the deployment of ground-launched intermediate-range missiles instead. While Washington initially rejected the offer, in 2022, it said it would be willing to discuss this.

In August last year, the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced Russia’s withdrawal from this moratorium, however, saying the US had “made significant progress” and “openly declared plans to deploy US ground-launched INF-range missiles in various regions”. INF stands for intermediate-range nuclear forces.

Since October 7, 2023, the United States and Israel believed that sustained diplomatic and military pressure on Iran would deter and degrade its capacity to fight. In the process, they degraded something else entirely: Iran’s willingness to remain constrained. The missiles and drones now striking across the Gulf show that Iran is no longer holding back.

For years, Iran operated under a doctrine of “strategic patience”. This was a deliberate, calculated form of restraint that guided how Tehran and its network of allies delt with Washington and Tel Aviv.

Rather than confrontation, Iran built and leveraged a web of deterrence: Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Houthis in Yemen, Hamas in Gaza, and the Popular Mobilisation Forces in Iraq were its allies surrounding Israel, and helped to apply brakes on any major Israeli aggression.

The first serious fracture in Iran’s policy came in April 2024, when an Israeli strike destroyed the Iranian consulate in Damascus, killing senior Revolutionary Guard commanders. Tehran’s response was to launch Operation True Promise, a direct barrage of drones and ballistic missiles fired at Israeli territory.

Throughout 2024 and even into 2025, Iran attempted to maintain a form of managed restraint and carefully calibrated deterrence to avoid triggering all-out war. But the environment was shifting in ways that made this strategy untenable. Israel’s systematic targeting of Hamas and Hezbollah leadership disrupted key nodes of Iran’s deterrence architecture. The fall of the al-Assad government in Syria threatened critical supply lines through Iran’s primary land corridor to Hezbollah.

Following the 12-day-war in 2025, Iran formally declared a new doctrine in January 2026 of “active and unprecedented deterrence”.

When the US and Israel launched coordinated strikes on February 28, 2026, during ongoing negotiations, they confirmed to the Iranian leadership that restraint offered no protection and would likely offer none in the future.

In addition to striking Iran, Israel has struck Lebanon, Iraq, Yemen and Syria. The reaction from Iran has so far been a demonstration of its new doctrine: Kuwait, Qatar, UAE, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Jordan, Israel and Cyprus have all been hit by Iran in a matter of days.

These countries have all played different roles in the region. Qatar, for example, has maintained its own strategy of mediation and has not only hosted a US base but also offices of Hamas; the most sophisticated display of balancing regional tensions. The fact that it has been drawn into the latest escalation is a direct indictment of the failure of governments with power and influence – particularly the US – to meaningfully resolve the crisis in Gaza over the past years.

Perhaps the most significant development in the current escalation is Iran’s heavy targeting of the United Arab Emirates. The UAE has pursued a foreign policy defined by a strategy of fragmentation. This has meant working with Israel and other partners to break down unified political and military opposition across the region into smaller, disconnected elements that can be more easily contained and managed.

That strategy was always premised on the assumption that the UAE’s own stability was insulated from its actions. As rockets rain down on Dubai and Abu Dhabi, the illusion of that separation is no longer possible.

Iran’s allies in the region have not fully mobilised, and despite their severe attrition, they and have retained an organisational depth that would likely allow them to sustain low-level armed resistance, similar to what wore down US forces in Iraq.

As the primary actors lock into a cycle of overt military confrontation, dormant domestic crises are rapidly being ignited across the Middle East. There are reports that the US administration  is encouraging Kurdish forces to form a ground offensive against Iran. In Bahrain, renewed protests against the monarchy have erupted, with Saudi forces being deployed to the island kingdom to crack down on the opposition. Protesters in Baghdad have tried to storm the Green Zone, the seat of parliament.

Palestine remains the clearest expression of the regional order that Israel and the US have sought to impose, with active support from the UAE: Isolated enclaves, subject to permanent low-grade military pressure in the West Bank and full-scale destruction in Gaza. The capacity for meaningful self-governance has been systematically dismantled while territorial expansion by Israel continues. This is the template.

The chapter of calibrated, managed conflict has been forcibly closed by the cumulative weight of Israeli choices. Each US and Israeli strike on Iran and Iranian-aligned leadership, each negotiation conducted before military operations, and each refusal to treat Palestinian political agency as a genuine variable in any regional settlement were choices made by governments that believed that security could be achieved through a combination of fragmentation and force.

When US Secretary of State Rubio addressed the Munich Security Conference, the nostalgia for an era of uncontested Western primacy was unmistakable. But that era is precisely what produced the conditions now exploding across the region. Israel’s settler-colonial expansion continues. The fragmentation model is being extended into Lebanon, Syria, and even the Horn of Africa,  with regime change unleashed on Iran to facilitate this project. And the accumulated resistance to it, whether from state or non-state actors, is no longer constrained by the patience that once made it manageable.

Stability for the region will be shaped by whether a global coalition can be built after a reckoning with a basic contradiction: A rules-based order cannot coexist indefinitely with territorial expansion, collective punishment, and selective accountability.