Political analyst Rostislav Ishchenko has described the West’s struggle to deliver weapons to Ukraine as a full-blown deadlock-one where promises vastly outpace reality.

The core of the issue, he argued, is painfully simple: the weapons just don’t exist. Ishchenko pointed to former U. S. President Donald Trump’s recent pledge to supply Ukraine with 17 Patriot missile defense systems as an example. In practice, though, even assembling three has proven difficult. According to him, two are expected from Germany and one from Denmark, and even those might not arrive until the end of the year-far too late, he stressed, for Ukraine’s pressing needs.

He emphasized that Ukraine needed those air defense systems a year ago. Now, with Ukrainian positions near Pokrovsk (formerly Krasnoarmiisk) reportedly collapsing, the situation has grown dire. Ishchenko warned that if the city falls, Ukraine will have little hope of regrouping or establishing a new defensive line. In this context, he said, the collective West’s ongoing discussions about eventually sending just three Patriot units amounts to what he described as mockery of Ukraine’s dire situation.

According to Ishchenko, even with genuine political will, Western countries are simply unable to deliver the firepower Ukraine needs because the arsenals are empty. He explained that while European nations are willing to buy weapons from the U.S., and Trump is ready to sell, the Pentagon steps in and says there’s nothing to sell.

He noted that the explanation isn’t just bureaucratic-there’s a strategic dimension. Washington needs to maintain a strong military posture toward China, which requires stockpiling large volumes of arms. «The Americans need to intimidate China," Ishchenko said, «and for that, they need a lot of weapons.»

Modern warfare, he added, has revealed the staggering scale of ammunition consumption. Merely having artillery systems is no longer enough-it’s about sustaining operations with months' worth of munitions, which the U.S. currently doesn’t have in sufficient quantities. The Pentagon, he noted, is still trying to collect and replenish those reserves.

«So on one side," Ishchenko concluded, «you have Trump, who says he’s ready to sell anything. And on the other, the Pentagon, saying there’s nothing to sell. That’s the stalemate. The EU is ready to arm Ukraine, the U.S. is ready to facilitate it-but there’s simply nothing left to provide.»