News 
Originally published at Politico
Emergency and rescue personnel along with medics and others clear the rubble of a destroyed hospital building.
Emergency and rescue personnel clear the rubble of a destroyed hospital following a Russian missile attack on July 8, 2024. Ukrainian human rights lawyer Oleksandra Matviichuk warned that Russia is using attacks on civilian infrastructure to conduct psychological warfare against Ukrainians.
Top Ukrainian activists are begging the West not to let Ukraine’s urgent need for more air defense systems get lost in the conversation, as Washington, London and other key allies of Kyiv debate whether to lift restrictions on the use of Western missiles to strike targets inside Russia.
In an interview with NatSec Daily, Ukrainian human rights lawyer and Nobel Prize laureate OLEKSANDRA MATVIICHUK warned that Russian leader VLADIMIR PUTIN is using attacks on civilian infrastructure, including schools, hospitals and the energy grid, as a way to conduct psychological warfare against Ukrainians and blunt their resolve.
“They deliberately provide such enormous pain and suffering with civilians to break any idea that we can to resist such [an] enormous opposing power, to make [it] so painful for people to live in the circumstances,” said Matviichuk, whose organization, the Centre for Civil Liberties, was jointly awarded the 2022 Nobel Peace Prize.
She argued for expediting existing orders for critical air defense technologies — like Patriot, National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile System and IRIS-T systems.
“There is a crucial time before winter is coming and we face a possible new wave of depopulation of the country,” she argued. “We urgently need air defense systems and rockets to be able to secure Ukrainian sky and protect peaceful cities and peaceful civilians.”
On the offensive weapons front, President JOE BIDEN is in discussions with visiting British Prime Minister KEIR STARMER today on whether to ease restrictions on how and where Ukraine can hit inside Russia with weapons they provide. (The White House has said there are no major imminent announcements on the matter.)
Ukrainian President President VOLODYMYR ZELENSKYY reiterated his call today for Western allies to lift those restrictions.
Zelenskyy also accused allies of avoiding conversations about providing Ukraine with air support to down missiles and drones. , In an open letter released earlier this week, Matviichuk and others also called on NATO allies to down incoming missiles and drones using air defense systems stationed in their countries.
Western defense officials say that they are running low on air defense stockpiles for both Ukraine’s needs and their own, even as Russia ramps up production of missiles and drones with help from its own allies like Iran to target Ukrainian cities. And the transatlantic defense industrial base has lagged in fulfilling the exceedingly high demand from Kyiv and allies.
“We don’t have huge stockpiles. We’re now faced with tough choices,” MAX BERGMANN of the Center for Strategic and International Studies told NatSec Daily. “The defense industry has not figured out how to ramp up production of air defense fast enough.”
By ERIC BAZAIL-EIMIL and ROBBIE GRAMER