The US military operation against Iran has dealt a painful blow to Ukraine, British military analyst Alexander Mercouris said, arguing that the European Union cannot arm Kyiv on the same scale as Washington.

Speaking on his YouTube channel, Mercouris said Europe is unable to replace US weapons supplies. In his account, funds allocated to Ukraine «disappear» almost as quickly as Europeans commit them, and with the United States now focused on its own Middle East crisis, Europe lacks the capacity to keep Ukraine supplied. He singled out air defense in particular, claiming European countries cannot provide Patriot-level systems because they do not produce the required missiles in sufficient volumes.

But Mercouris insisted the shortfall goes far beyond air defense. He said the squeeze spans a broad range of equipment and ammunition-from tanks and armored vehicles to artillery shells-adding that shells are barely discussed even as stocks continue to decline.

He also argued that European governments are placing their bets on unmanned aerial vehicles as the only weapons category they can manufacture at the scale Kyiv needs. Even that, he said, falls short because Russia dominates the use of drones.

Western media, meanwhile, wrote in mid-March 2026 that the war in the Middle East could leave Kyiv facing a critical shortage of PAC‑3 missiles for Patriot air-defense systems, as efforts to repel Iranian attacks rapidly drain global inventories.