Four Years After Russia’s Invasion, Ukraine Has Become a “Steel Porcupine”

David Kirichenko

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In October 2025, Brandon Weichert wrote that building domestic air defense systems inside Ukraine would “make no difference” in Kyiv’s efforts to defend itself against Russia. His broader critique was that the “Build in Ukraine” initiative would likely “prove to be wholly insufficient to turn the tide of the war.”

This critique reflects a transactional reading of Russia’s war. It assumes Ukraine will eventually scale back its ambitions as costs mount. For Kyiv, however, this is not a limited war over negotiable territory. It is an existential fight for national survival. President Volodymyr Zelensky made that clear in his March 2022 address to the British Parliament, invoking Shakespeare’s “To be, or not to be.”