Viktor BED
Doctor of Theology, Doctor of Law, Professor
Research Institute for Strategic, Political and Legal StudiesAugustyn Voloshyn Carpathian University
Uzhhorod, 20 September 2026
On 18 September 2026, the U.S. Department of State approved a possible sale to Ukraine of equipment, weapons and services to develop its air defense capabilities, with an estimated value of US$2.68 billion, under the Foreign Military Sales (FMS) program. This is neither a contract that has already been fulfilled nor weapons that will automatically arrive in Ukraine tomorrow. It is another stage in the U.S. military sales process, to be followed by contracting, supplier selection and the actual fulfillment of orders.
The public response to this development therefore calls not for diplomatic pleasantries and media enthusiasm, but for a sober comparison of declared intentions with the actual situation on the front line, the state of Ukraine’s air defenses, the production capacity of the Western defense industry, the U.S. domestic political calendar, and the capacity of the Ukrainian state itself finally to live and act in accordance with the demands of a protracted war of attrition.
The Harsh Reality of Autumn 2026: Exhaustion and the Threat
of Further Strikes
Ukraine is entering the autumn–winter period of 2026–2027 under extraordinary military, fiscal and energy pressures.
An exhausting struggle continues along a front line stretching over a thousand kilometers. Russian forces maintain constant pressure in a number of sectors, making extensive use of guided aerial bombs, artillery, attack drones and reconnaissance drones. At the same time, the situation is not one-sided: Ukrainian forces are also making localized advances and striking Russian military infrastructure.
Behind the front lines, Russia continues its systematic missile and drone attacks on Ukrainian cities, logistics networks, industrial facilities and energy infrastructure. Even in autumn, Ukraine is already approaching winter with severely damaged infrastructure and enormous costs for its restoration and protection.
The problem is even more acute in air defense. Ukrainian military personnel have publicly reported a critical shortage of surface-to-air missiles, while a substantial proportion of the new interceptors now being ordered will arrive only over the coming years. Thus, even the availability of modern Patriot, NASAMS and IRIS-T systems does not, in itself, solve the problem without adequate and sustained stocks of ammunition.
Ukraine needs interceptors, radars, counter-drone systems, mobile fire teams and electronic warfare capabilities, not at some distant point in the future. It needs them every day—starting now.
The Technical Package: The Right Direction, but an Unknown
Timeline
The list released by the U.S. side certainly warrants attention. Ukraine’s request includes:
• S-300 Clone missiles;
• GAM-67 missiles;
• Range-Extended Air Defense Laser Guided Rocket systems;
• Improvised Transporter Erector Launcher 1.5 (ITEL 1.5) launchers;
• modification kits for mobile launch systems;
• RPS 202 counter-unmanned aerial system radars;
• ancillary equipment, spare parts, software, transportation, engineering and technical support.
Of particular interest are the S-300 Clone and GAM-67—systems for which detailed specifications are, as of today, virtually unavailable in the public domain. Specialist publications suggest that the S-300 Clone may be a new missile adapted for use with the S-300 family of systems already in Ukraine’s inventory. Official U.S. documentation, however, does not explain this in detail. It would therefore be premature to present conjecture as established technical fact.
And this is precisely where the central problem begins.
The U.S. notification explicitly states that contractors will be selected through a competitive process. In other words, as of the announcement approving a possible sale under the Foreign Military Sales (FMS) program, no prime contractor has been publicly identified, no final contracts have been concluded, and no official delivery schedule has been released.
In this context, it is essential to distinguish clearly between the legal and production dimensions of the procedures involved. Under the U.S. Arms Export Control Act (AECA), publication of a press release by the Defense Security Cooperation Agency (DSCA) constitutes only an official notification to the U.S. Congress of a potential transaction, not a signed intergovernmental agreement or a commercial order.
A complex bureaucratic process still lies ahead: completion of the congressional review period, formalization of the bilateral Letter of Offer and Acceptance (LOA), the Pentagon’s issuance of requests for proposals (RFPs) to private corporations, and the actual placement of orders in the U.S. defense industry’s production queue. The average production lead time for high-technology air defense equipment in the Western defense industry is currently between 18 and 36 months.
Presenting approval of an intention as proof that weapons physically exist in warehouses is self-deception, whether conscious or unconscious. In wartime, what matters is not the amount declared in a document, but the date on which a specific item enters operational service with a specific surface-to-air missile battalion of the Ukrainian Air Force. Until an official and legally binding delivery schedule exists, this package cannot be counted among the forces and capabilities available to repel enemy attacks in the coming months.
The “1:1” Financial and Legal Framework and the
Reconstruction Investment Fund
It is equally important to understand the financial structure correctly.
The U.S. side has stated that, if the relevant contracts are concluded, the procurement will be financed through a combination of contributions from European partners and Foreign Military Financing (FMF) funds appropriated under the previous U.S. administration. The FMF funds will be credited as a U.S. capital contribution to the United States–Ukraine Reconstruction Investment Fund under the stipulated 1:1 mechanism.
Particular legal precision is required here.
The agreement establishing the fund does not transfer ownership of Ukraine’s subsoil resources to the United States. Ukraine retains ownership of its natural resources and the authority to determine the terms of their use. Instead, the Ukrainian side contributes a portion of future revenues from new licenses and new projects in designated sectors to the fund, while new U.S. military assistance may be valued as a capital contribution by the U.S. side.
The legal reality is therefore more complex than two equally simplistic extremes: the claim of “free American aid” and the assertion of a purported direct “sale of Ukraine’s subsoil resources.”
What does the United States receive? Credit for new military assistance toward its own capital contribution to the joint fund, economic participation in prospective investment projects, and an instrument for the long-term presence of U.S. capital in strategic sectors of the Ukrainian economy.
What does Ukraine receive? An additional mechanism for financing defense procurement and attracting investment without having to pay the package’s entire declared value directly from its depleted state budget—but, at the same time, long-term financial and investment obligations within the newly established joint structure.
At the same time, a legal analysis of the agreement’s structure reveals a significant asymmetry of obligations that the state cannot afford to ignore:
Conversion of previously allocated aid into commercial and investment assets: the United States counts FMF grant funds already appropriated under U.S. legislation in earlier periods as its contribution to the Reconstruction Fund. Resources originally intended as direct, non-repayable military support for defense are thus transformed into legally secured U.S. equity and ownership interests in projects to rebuild Ukraine’s economy.
A mismatch in the timing of performance: Ukraine’s obligations to grant licenses, corporate rights and access to strategic sectors—including the extraction and processing of critical minerals such as titanium, lithium and uranium—are immediately formalized in binding international legal instruments, while the corresponding delivery of defense products is extended over an unknown period.
The Ukrainian authorities must therefore establish a reciprocal legal principle as an absolute imperative: any economic preferences and interests in the Fund must take effect solely in proportion to the actual physical arrival of weapons in Ukraine, rather than upon the announcement of tenders or the signing of declarations of intent.
This is precisely why the mechanism requires systematic parliamentary, financial and legal oversight, not political euphoria.
The U.S. Political Calendar: Elections and the Trump Administration’s Pragmatism
The political context cannot be ignored either.
On 3 November 2026, the United States will hold congressional midterm elections, with all 435 seats in the House of Representatives and approximately one-third of the Senate up for election.
In recent months, Donald Trump’s administration has consistently emphasized the need for European states to make a greater financial contribution to their own defense and to support for Ukraine. The mechanism underlying the new package fully accords with this logic: European funds are combined with previously appropriated U.S. FMF funds, while the corresponding U.S. financing is simultaneously credited to the Investment Fund.
For the domestic U.S. audience, this model is politically far more convenient than another direct allocation of tens of billions of dollars from the federal budget.
In the electoral strategy of Donald Trump’s administration and the Republican majority, this move serves as a carefully calibrated media and political maneuver. A month and a half before polling day, the White House presents domestic voters with the following formula: “We are not spending a single new dollar of American taxpayers’ money—we are making the Europeans pay, selling the products of our own defense industry, and securing a guaranteed share in Ukraine’s future resources.” At the same time, this is presented to foreign partners as proof of unwavering transatlantic leadership.
For Ukraine at war, however, this contains a significant risk of political gatekeeping. Because financing is divided into tranches and suppliers have not yet been contracted, the pace of implementation becomes a convenient instrument of foreign policy pressure. Depending on the balance of power in Congress after 3 November or the dynamics of behind-the-scenes negotiations, Washington may either accelerate the fulfillment of orders or deliberately slow it down to compel Kyiv to make particular political compromises.
There is another risk: the political dependence of implementation timelines. When assistance does not come directly from existing stocks, but passes through a system of contracting, financing, export procedures and private manufacturers, the actual pace of delivery inevitably depends on decisions made by the U.S. executive branch.
This creates an objective source of political leverage, regardless of whether Washington actually uses it in negotiations with Kyiv.
Russia’s Response: The Time Lag as a Strategic Risk
Moscow also understands the difference between a political announcement of procurement and the actual arrival of weapons on the battlefield.
Ukraine must therefore plan for at least three risks.
First, a maximum escalation of attacks within the window of vulnerability. The Russian military command draws on detailed information from public FMS procedures and understands that the systems approved on 18 September will not enter operational service this autumn or winter. For the aggressor, the period from autumn 2026 to spring 2027 represents a foreseeable operational window in which Ukraine’s Soviet-era S-300 missile stocks have reached critically low levels, while Western replacement batches have yet to be manufactured. What should be expected is not simply the continuation of combined attacks, but their maximum intensification against key nodes of the power grid—above all, substations serving nuclear power plants—as well as extraction facilities and defense industry sites, with the aim of breaking the state’s resilience behind the front lines before new air defense deliveries begin.
Second, sabotage and logistical threats. The production, transportation and deployment of high-technology systems create a lengthy logistics chain, every link of which requires counterintelligence and physical protection.
Third, information warfare. Moscow can be expected to exploit the themes of corruption, the cost of assistance, U.S. control over Ukrainian resources, and disagreements among the United States, Ukraine and Europe.
The Strategic Imperative: Mobilizing the State for War
Instead of Chronic External Dependence
The principal lesson of previous years is clear: no foreign assistance, however extensive, can replace the indigenous defense capability of a state fighting for its very existence.
The US$2.68 billion package once again exposes a systemic problem: Ukraine is critically dependent on the decisions of foreign governments, parliaments and manufacturers, and on foreign electoral cycles, while enemy missiles and drones are launched every day.
Over the years of full-scale war, Ukraine’s public administration, fiscal policy and economy have still not been fully reorganized to meet the demands of a protracted war of attrition.
Maintaining peacetime bureaucratic inertia and non-priority expenditure, while hoping that partners will fill every gap in Ukrainian defense planning, is a strategically dangerous model.
This strategic imperative requires Ukraine to take at least four urgent, systemic decisions:
1. An uncompromising reorganization of public administration and the economy onto a war footing.
In the fifth year of full-scale conflict, maintaining peacetime bureaucratic inertia is unacceptable. Public expenditure must be comprehensively concentrated on the war effort: all secondary civilian funding must be suspended, redirecting the entirety of fiscal and industrial resources to the needs of the Defense Forces.
Defense industry enterprises must receive the greatest possible regulatory support, long-term interest-free financing, and freedom from artificial pressure exerted by regulatory and tax authorities.
2. Accelerated funding for domestic missile systems and ballistic weapons.
Passive air defense will never win a war against an aggressor with unlimited resources for terror.
Ukraine must concentrate the maximum possible state funding and scientific and technological capacity on the serial production of its own operational-tactical missile systems, ballistic missiles, long-range cruise missiles, heavy attack drones and modular electronic warfare systems.
A state forced to align every strike using foreign weapons with its partners’ domestic political circumstances lacks genuine strategic agency.
3. Extending systematic strikes into the aggressor state’s strategic depth.
Under Article 51 of the UN Charter, the right of self-defense includes the right to destroy the enemy’s military-industrial capacity.
The security of Ukrainian cities is guaranteed not by intercepting missiles over residential neighborhoods, but by regular, large-scale strikes against lawful targets throughout the depth of the Russian Federation’s territory: missile manufacturing plants, oil refineries, gunpowder factories, Main Missile and Artillery Directorate (GRAU) arsenals, military airfields and launch positions.
Only the direct and inescapable physical destruction of the aggressor state’s rear infrastructure can compel the Kremlin to end its aerial terror.
4. A pragmatic division of foreign military assistance packages into distinct components.
Ukraine’s military and political leadership must formally divide the approved US$2.68 billion package into two separate tracks:
An immediate operational component: press for the priority transfer of already manufactured RPS 202 tactical radars, mobile laser-guidance systems and launchers from U.S. or allied stockpiles to strengthen air defenses during the current season.
A medium-term industrial component: oversee the conclusion of contracts to manufacture S-300 Clone and GAM-67 missiles, insisting on transparent production schedules. At the same time, the operation of the Reconstruction Investment Fund must be governed exclusively by Ukrainian law and the protection of national interests: access to strategic subsoil resources and assets must not become hostage to declarations whose fulfillment is deferred for years.
What must be demanded is not an impressive headline figure of US$2.68 billion, but clear answers to four questions: exactly what will be delivered, in what quantities, when, and to which Ukrainian units?
Likewise, the Reconstruction Investment Fund must remain subject to continuous state and parliamentary oversight, so that any investment preferences, rights of first consideration or future financial obligations do not exceed the scope of ratified agreements or create concealed restrictions on Ukraine’s economic sovereignty.
Ukrainian sovereignty cannot be held hostage to electoral cycles in Washington, Brussels or any other capital.
Allies are necessary. Weapons from partners are necessary. International financial support is necessary.
But a state that wants to survive cannot afford to base its survival on others’ promises and production schedules.
The true guarantee of Ukraine’s security is a combat-capable army, a mobilized economy, a domestic defense industry, technological superiority, and long-range weapons capable of depriving the aggressor of its sense of impunity even deep within its own territory.
