KYIV -- Ukraine urgently needs the United States and Europe to transfer more air defense systems and missiles to Kyiv, Ukraine's commander in chief Gen. Oleksandr Syrsky said in an interview with The Washington Post -- and without a Biden-era ban on deep strikes against Russian military targets.
Syrsky's call for ramped-up support comes amid a devastating wave of Russian attacks against Ukrainian cities this summer, with Moscow pummeling civilians nightly with ballistic missiles and hundreds of armed drones. Ukraine is also facing challenges on the battlefield as it struggles to mobilize the troops needed to stem the grinding advance of a numerically superior foe.
The bloody campaign against cities has spurred frustrations in the White House over Russian President Vladimir Putin's refusal to stop the war and prompted President Donald Trump to approve a new plan to bolster Kyiv's military arsenal by allowing European countries to buy U.S.-made weapons for Ukraine.
A fresh supply of air defense weapons including U.S.-made Patriots, drone interceptors and light aviation to shoot down drones could help thwart the Russian attacks, Syrsky said. More mid- and longer-range missiles, including U.S.-made ATACMS and German Taurus systems, would -- if issued without restrictions on their use -- allow Kyiv to slow Russian weapon production by targeting the infrastructure making its missiles and drones.
"They are targeting virtually everything -- airfields, populated areas, infrastructure facilities," Syrsky said of Russia. "So, of course, we need supplies of ballistic missiles in order to be able to give the enemy a fitting rebuff."
"The availability of any missile weapons is in itself a deterrent," he added. "I hope that thanks to President Trump's position, this process will be much easier and ... we won't have any of the difficulties we had before."
Syrsky declined to comment on whether Ukraine has any of the powerful ATACMS left in stock, although it's widely understood that the country's supplies have run out. When asked if a new delivery of the American missiles would save Ukrainian lives, he replied: "Of course."
In a July 4 phone call, Trump asked Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky if Ukraine was able to strike Moscow or St. Petersburg. He has since said Ukraine should not do so. Still, the discussion raised questions about whether Trump would be willing to lift the Biden-era restrictions on certain U.S. weapons that Kyiv has long decried.
Syrsky spoke to The Post on Saturday, five days after Trump announced his plan to arm Ukraine, which will see European countries send supplies from their own stocks and then purchase new systems for themselves from Washington.
The proposal marked a major policy shift by Trump, whose administration has flip-flopped on its support for Kyiv and briefly suspended military aid and intelligence sharing earlier this year. Amid growing frustrations over Russia's nonstop bombing of Ukraine and failure to make progress on U.S. demands for productive peace talks, Trump also threatened to intensely sanction Moscow if no deal to end the fighting is reached in 50 days.
In addition to the air defense and missile insufficiencies, Ukraine's ground troops, who remain vastly outnumbered on the front line, are also running low on 155mm artillery shells, Syrsky said, and need an additional supply of armored vehicles. "We have highly motivated and courageous soldiers who can advance," he said, "but they need modern, reliable means of protection."
Although Germany is in talks with Washington to finance and supply Patriot batteries for Ukraine, Defense Minister Boris Pistorius said earlier this month that Berlin would not supply Ukraine with the longer-range Taurus missiles Kyiv has requested.
This push to arm Ukraine and ward off Russia's constant aerial assaults is only the latest challenge in a turbulent tenure for Syrsky, a four-star general who has led Ukraine's armed forces since February 2024 and turns 60 this week. Syrsky replaced Gen. Valery Zaluzhny last year after he was dismissed amid disagreements with Zelensky over a failed 2023 counteroffensive and troop mobilization.
Syrsky, who previously served as Ukraine's ground forces commander, was best known at the time for having planned the risky but wildly successful 2022 counteroffensive in the northeastern Kharkiv region that exploited Russian vulnerabilities and liberated hundreds of square miles of territory in a matter of days. But he later faced criticism among foot soldiers for what many saw as a misguided decision to keep troops holding the besieged eastern city of Bakhmut in 2023 even as they were severely outnumbered by the advancing Russians.
Syrsky was promoted to commander in chief as Russian forces appeared set to achieve significant advances in the country's east. By May of last year, they had reinvaded Kharkiv, but they faced fierce resistance and were ultimately contained to a small part of the border area.
A delayed U.S. decision to allow some cross-border strikes with ATACMS for the first time helped turn the tide in Kharkiv. "We all made a lot of efforts, including public speaking, to explain and prove the need to use these types of long-range weapons on the territory of the Russian Federation," Syrsky said. The Biden administration had long refused to allow such strikes, fearing they would cross a red line for Putin and spur a dangerous response.
Despite the change in policy, last summer "was really very difficult for us," Syrsky said. Russia planned further intensive offensive operations, including attacks on the Sumy region. It had ramped up drone production and offered new financial incentives to recruit ground troops, worsening Ukraine's front-line woes.
"We were heavily criticized because we were defending and retreating," Syrsky said. "I had to do something, let's say, extraordinary."
With the help of a small group of commanders, he concocted a plan to divert Russian troops by invading Russia's western Kursk region and putting them on the defensive inside their own country for the first time. It was a dangerous gamble, but Ukrainian forces ultimately seized some 500 square miles of Russian territory, stunning Moscow and the West.
The operation sent morale skyrocketing among Ukrainian troops and civilians desperate for news of advances along the front. But critics claimed the plan also left parts of the front line vulnerable to Russian attacks and ultimately contributed to more territorial losses.
Nearly a year later, an intense Russian counteroffensive has pushed Ukraine out of almost all parts of Kursk that it once controlled and is pressing heavily on the eastern Donetsk region. Russian forces are also for the first time trying to break into the Dnipropetrovsk region.
The Kursk operation will surely remain a defining turning point in Syrsky's legacy. The commander said that he stands firmly by it and that it was an essential plan that thwarted Russia's aims to seize more territory and relieved pressure on some parts of the beleaguered eastern front.
In the past year, roughly a third of Russia's guided aerial bombs were used inside the Kursk region rather than in Ukraine. Russian fiber-optic drones, which pose a major threat to Ukrainians because they cannot be jammed, first appeared on the battlefield in Kursk, Syrsky said, rather than in eastern Ukraine. So did North Korean troops, who may now number some 20,000 in the region although they have still not deployed on combat missions to Ukraine, he said.
The Kursk occupation ultimately killed or wounded at least 80,000 Russian troops, Syrsky said. He declined to disclose Ukrainian casualties there but said they were significantly fewer than Russia's.
The eastern city of Pokrovsk, which appeared poised to fall in August 2024, remains in Ukrainian control nearly a year later, although barely. Its defense has been possible, Syrsky said, largely thanks to the resolve of Ukrainian troops and to creating barriers such as minefields that have led to 30 percent losses among Russian vehicles along that stretch of the front.
Euphoria from the Kursk operation has long since faded on the front line amid nonstop Russian assaults. Ukraine is struggling to compete with Russia's much larger military and the enormous financial incentives it doles out to recruits.
Getting more troops into the field remains a major challenge, Syrsky said, and he acknowledged that "everything related to mobilization is very sensitive information." Russia is intensely targeting these mobilization efforts, both through propaganda and by bombing recruitment centers.
While the mandatory draft is only for men ages 25 to 60, Ukraine has begun experimenting with a program to mobilize 18-to-24-year-olds for one-year contracts in exchange for large bonuses and travel permissions. It has hardly gathered speed. Syrsky said a recent survey assessing the initiative found that for more than half of respondents, "the motivation is more money."
"If it is increased, there will be more applicants," he said, noting that Russia has the resources to pay its contract soldiers significantly more.
When Syrsky turns 60 this week, he will reach Ukraine's military retirement age -- but he laughed off any suggestion that he would step down. He can still do 100 push-ups without a break, he said, and that's despite his aides' reports that he rarely -- if ever -- sleeps. What motivates him, he said, is "understanding my personal role in the process of protecting our population, our citizens. And I understand that I have to do more and better."
Even after years in higher command, he said, he remains most comfortable alongside foot soldiers on the front line. His aides expect that's where he will spend his 60th birthday. He said it's too early to tell.
"That's up to God," he said with a laugh,"and my president."