Keir Giles

“That was a marked high in terms of their willingness to inflict mass casualties,”

Keir Giles · said date not stated · reported 2026-09-04

Giles was referring to the 2024 parcel bomb plot in which Russia was accused of sending liquid explosive packages to the UK and Poland.

“They're assessing the willingness of the victim country to actually do something about it.”

Keir Giles · said date not stated · reported 2026-09-04

Giles sees the sabotage campaign as preparation for the next phase of Russia's aggression in Europe.

“Russia is probing the boundaries of what's acceptable and collecting information on the results. They find out what works, and what's vulnerable,”

Keir Giles · said date not stated · reported 2026-09-04

Giles argued that Russia is testing NATO for weaknesses by probing what actions are acceptable and what targets are vulnerable.

“So redressing that balance would be a major step forward for Ukraine, especially if it is able to reduce the number of missiles being launched at Ukraine every night by striking at the facilities that enable those launches,”

Keir Giles · said date not stated · reported 2026-08-24

Giles added that redressing the balance in missile production would be a major step forward for Ukraine in the war.

“Russia, meanwhile, has been exponentially increasing its production of drones and missiles, a trend that’s been in place for several years now.”

Keir Giles · said date not stated · reported 2026-08-24

Giles noted that Russia has been exponentially increasing its production of drones and missiles for several years.

“European partners are taking up the task of making sure that Ukraine can prevail in the war, and a major part of that is ensuring that it can strike into Russia.”

Keir Giles · said date not stated · reported 2026-08-24

Giles added that European partners are taking up the task of ensuring Ukraine can prevail, including by enabling strikes into Russia.

“Ukraine has had to be highly selective in the targets against which it uses its very limited stocks of the most advanced weapons systems,”

Keir Giles · said date not stated · reported 2026-08-24

Giles explained that Ukraine has had to be selective in targeting with its limited stocks of advanced weapons systems.

“Ukraine, under the force of fighting a war of national survival, has been developing a very agile, highly motivated and distributed defence industry, which is far ahead in terms of adaptation to current needs [compared with] some of its Western European counterparts, including the UK,”

Keir Giles · said date not stated · reported 2026-08-24

Giles told Al Jazeera that Ukraine is likely to have good capacity for producing sophisticated weapon systems once it has the blueprints.

“The United States is not willing to supply the interceptors for Patriot missile systems, so there’s a gap in Ukraine’s air and missile defences, which Russia has been exploiting.”

Keir Giles · said date not stated · reported 2026-08-24

Giles explained that the US is not willing to supply Patriot interceptors, creating a gap in Ukraine's air and missile defences that Russia has been exploiting.

“slap in the face to its coalition supporters”

Keir Giles · said date not stated · reported 2026-08-24

Giles said Ukraine may already have knowledge of the Storm Shadow design but using it without cooperation would be a slap in the face to its coalition supporters.