Ukraine has overhauled the way it deploys U.S.-made Patriot air defense systems in an effort to conserve dwindling interceptor missile supplies while defending against an escalating wave of Russian ballistic missile and drone attacks, according to Ukrainian military commanders and defense experts, The New York Times reported on Monday.

Ukrainian troops, who completed Patriot training in the U.S. and Germany three years ago, initially employed the systems according to standard operating procedures taught by Western instructors.

But commanders said persistent ammunition shortages and increasingly complex Russian attacks forced them to abandon those tactics in favor of new approaches designed to maximize limited resources.

Among the most significant changes, Ukrainian crews often launch a single Patriot interceptor against incoming ballistic missiles rather than the two or more missiles typically fired under standard doctrine.

Operators also place the systems in manual mode to prevent them from automatically engaging low-cost drones that can instead be destroyed by machine guns, helicopter-mounted weapons, or increasingly by interceptor drones.

The Patriots are now largely reserved for Ukraine's most difficult targets — fast-moving ballistic missiles that cannot be intercepted by the country's other air defense systems.

"We initially used the tactics and the knowledge that we had been taught in America," said Viacheslav Aheiev, commander of a Ukrainian Patriot unit who trained at Fort Sill, Oklahoma. Once combat operations began, he said, Ukrainian forces realized they needed "to introduce some of our own experience and skills" and move away from the methods they had been taught.

Ukrainian commanders have also adopted "shoot and scoot" tactics, rapidly relocating Patriot batteries after firing to reduce the risk of Russian counterstrikes. Crews supplement those movements with camouflage and realistic decoys costing about $30,000 each to protect Patriot batteries valued at roughly $1 billion.

The adaptations come as Ukraine confronts a sharp increase in Russian missile attacks while global supplies of Patriot interceptors have tightened following U.S. military operations in the Middle East and the recent conflict involving Iran.

The shortage has prompted Ukrainian forces to share some of their battlefield lessons abroad. Ukrainian personnel have deployed to Gulf countries to train local troops in lower-cost drone defense tactics, while several governments have reportedly expressed interest in purchasing Ukrainian-made Patriot decoys.

Despite the innovations, Ukrainian officials acknowledge the measures have not been sufficient to counter Russia's expanding missile campaign.

Russia has significantly increased production and use of ballistic missiles, which travel too quickly for most Ukrainian air defense systems to intercept. Patriots remain the only system in Ukraine's arsenal capable of reliably engaging those weapons.

According to data compiled from Ukraine's Air Force, Russia has launched 521 ballistic missiles against Ukraine so far this year — more than double the number fired during the same period in 2025. Ukrainian forces have intercepted 164 of them.

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has urged the U.S. to approve a production license allowing Ukraine to manufacture Patriot batteries and interceptor missiles domestically. Washington controls the technology, and only Germany and Japan currently have authorization to produce the systems outside the United States.

Zelenskyy argued that expanding production in Ukraine would benefit both Kyiv and Washington by increasing overall manufacturing capacity for the advanced air defense systems.

But Tom Karako, a missile defense analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, said "the U.S. is trying to rapidly increase production for itself, to replenish everything we just shot up over the past six months. Everyone wants more, and not everyone can have more all at the same time."