Why Ukraine says future of defence lies beyond Patriot

In an opinion article for The Washington Post, Denys Shtilerman, founder of the Ukrainian defence company FirePoint, argues that modern warfare has fundamentally changed and that democracies must move away from dependence on a single country or defence manufacturer for critical military capabilities. Drawing on Ukraine's wartime experience, Shtilerman contends that future security will depend on resilient, decentralised defence ecosystems capable of rapidly producing and adapting weapons at scale.

Shtilerman opens his article by linking three recent developments that he says illustrate the changing nature of war.

The first was the launch of the Freyja coalition in Paris on July 13, where 10 European countries agreed to develop a European system for intercepting ballistic missiles. According to Shtilerman, the initiative is intended not to replace the US-made Patriot air defence system but to ensure that Europe's missile defence capabilities are no longer dependent on "a single manufacturer, a single country or a single political decision."

The second event occurred the same night, when Russia launched eight ballistic missiles at Ukraine. Patriot systems intercepted five of them, marking the first successful interceptions in nearly two weeks. Shtilerman attributes the earlier shortage of interceptor missiles to heavy use of Patriot systems during the recent US military campaign against Iran, combined with limited global production.

The third development involved Ukrainian long-range drones striking an oil refinery in Salavat, which Shtilerman says was the last major Russian refinery previously beyond Ukraine's reach. He notes that the drones used in the attack were produced by FirePoint and reveals that the company is also working on ballistic missile interceptors and a ballistic missile of its own.

According to Shtilerman, these seemingly unrelated events all demonstrate the same lesson: that modern national security cannot depend on a single supplier or country.

He argues that Ukraine's rapidly expanding defence industry emerged under the pressure of existential war rather than long-term industrial planning. Unlike traditional Western defence industries, which often rely on lengthy procurement cycles and complex development programmes, Ukraine's manufacturers have prioritised speed, adaptability and affordability.

As an example, Shtilerman points to Ukrainian drones, which he says combine inexpensive airframes, commercially available components, navigation systems resistant to electronic jamming and continuous battlefield-driven improvements.

The FirePoint founder also argues that current production levels for advanced interceptor missiles are insufficient to meet the demands of modern warfare. Referring to recent attacks on Kyiv, he writes that Russia launched 114 ballistic missiles and 24 Zircon and Oniks missiles over a five-week period between June 2 and July 6. By comparison, he says, global production of the advanced PAC-3 MSE Patriot interceptor amounts to only around 50 missiles per month, meaning that defending Kyiv alone could consume more than two months of worldwide output.

In his view, increasing production capacity through additional factories is only part of the solution.

Shtilerman argues that defence industries should instead adopt the same decentralised architecture that underpins the internet, eliminating single points of failure and allowing production to continue even if one manufacturer or facility becomes unavailable.

He describes the Freyja initiative as an example of this approach. According to the article, the project includes mechanisms such as intellectual property escrow, allowing technical documentation to be transferred to another participating manufacturer under predefined conditions while preserving ownership rights and royalty payments. He also argues that defence software and technical systems should avoid hidden dependencies on individual companies or governments and should remain open to independent auditing.

Shtilerman concludes that Ukraine learned through experience that "the best weapon in insufficient numbers loses to a sufficient number of good weapons." He argues that other democracies should draw lessons from Ukraine's wartime experience before facing similar security challenges.

According to Shtilerman, future security will depend not only on advanced weapons but on the ability of democratic nations to build flexible, interconnected defence ecosystems capable of sustaining production during prolonged conflict.

By Sabina Mammadli