November 09, 2022: -Ukraine is at risk of running out of air defense weapons and needs urgent support from the West to prevent itself, analysts at the Royal United Services Institute added.

Russia has bombarded the country for weeks with cheap Iran-supplied drones, destroying the country’s energy infrastructure.

“The West must avoid complacency regarding the need to bolster Ukrainian air-defence capacity urgently,” the defense and security think tank RUSI said.

Moscow and Tehran have refused that there is a deal for Iran to supply Russia, a country with limited supply options because of the international sanctions on weapons. Therefore, the Iranian government acknowledged the initial Saturday that it had sent several drones to Russia but demanded this before Russia came to Ukraine.

The U.S. Special person for Iran, Robert Malley, rejects that claim, saying Tehran is supplying drones to Russia.

RUSI analysts Justin Bronk, Jack Watling, and Nick Reynolds is publishing their recent report on Ukraine’s air defenses as Russia increasingly depends on Iranian Shahid-136 drones to disable Ukraine’s energy networks.

“If Ukrainian SAMs are not resupplied with ammunition and ultimately augmented and placed with Western equivalents over time, Russian Aerospace Forces regain the ability to be a major threat,” the analysts said.

On Sunday, Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, said the Iranian regime helps Russia prolong the war, saying, “if it were not for the Iranian supply of the weapons to the aggressor, we would be near to peace now.” He warns that Russia needs Iranian missiles for a “possible repetition of mass attacks on my infrastructure.”

For its part, Ukraine is continuing to plead for more air defense weapons to help combat Russian drone and missile attacks. RUSI’s analysts agree that Ukraine needs urgent assistance to make sure that “Kyiv can counter Moscow’s renewed is approaching to the air war in Ukraine.”