It was a stark warning to the skeptical audience of Western diplomats who gathered last week in Kyiv to hear the Trump administration pitch its Russia-friendly peace plan for Ukraine.
For years, Moscow fired missiles into Ukraine roughly as fast as it could make them. But now Russia is building enough to amass a growing stockpile of long-range weaponry, Daniel P. Driscoll, the U.S. Army secretary, told the assembled diplomats, according to two Western officials.
The implication was clear, the officials said: A settlement is needed quickly because of a rising missile threat that could deliver a knockout blow to Ukraine and spill over its borders.
While Russia is considered unlikely to significantly slow its arms production even if the war ends, a halt to the conflict could remove a potential justification for Moscow to fire missiles or drones at another European country.
Western officials who attended the meeting with Mr. Driscoll on Friday and spoke to The New York Times called the Russian buildup alarming and said his warning had resonated. They requested anonymity to describe Mr. Driscoll’s private remarks.
Traditionally, the United States would have been more likely to criticize Russia for stockpiling weapons than to use its arms manufacturing as a way to sell a peace deal unfavorable to a target of Russian aggression.
The emerging dynamic in Moscow’s missile production has become a backdrop to the Trump administration’s latest efforts to end the war, a push that is continuing this week as Mr. Driscoll prepares to return to Kyiv for more negotiations.
Mr. Driscoll, an ally of Vice President JD Vance who has become an unlikely leader of the American diplomacy, will be discussing a peace proposal that has undergone significant revisions after Ukrainian and European pushback.
But the Trump administration argument that Russia has the upper hand in the war and that Ukraine should accept a settlement soon still stands.
The U.S. assessment that Moscow is stockpiling missiles, which is backed up by Ukrainian military data and analysts’ calculations, signals an important shift for the Russian arms industry.
Analysts said that Russia could use its stockpile to devastate Ukraine’s already battered electrical infrastructure. It could whittle away at Ukraine’s dwindling supply of air defense missiles and make areas like Kyiv vulnerable. It could also wield the threat of missile or drone attacks on other European nations, analysts said.
In September, Russia responded to failed talks with missile strikes on Ukraine’s Cabinet of Ministers building in Kyiv and on an American factory in western Ukraine. This week, as the peace talks seemed to be gaining momentum, Russia unleashed a deadly volley of ballistic missiles and drones on Kyiv.
The warnings about a growing missile stockpile are a reversal from even a year ago. Evidence that Moscow was firing missiles as soon as it could build them came from a strike on a children’s hospital in Kyiv in July 2024. Investigators who examined debris found missile components manufactured just months earlier, Ukrainian officials said. Two adults died in the attack.
The newer components in missiles, and a policy of importing North Korean and Iranian arms, led to assessments at the time that Russia was fighting at or close to the limits of its military industrial capability.
By June of this year, however, Russia had expanded industrial capacity to assemble about 2,900 cruise and ballistic missiles per year, according to Ukraine’s military intelligence agency. The figure included Iskander ballistic missiles, Kinzhal hypersonic missiles and Kalibr cruise missiles, as well as anti-ship missiles that Russia has repurposed to fire at ground targets in Ukraine.
The Ukrainian Air Force has reported a gradual rise in missile attacks. Russia launched 2,061 cruise and ballistic missiles at Ukraine last year and is on track to fire slightly more this year, according to an analysis of air force data by The Times.
But even the rising rate of fire leaves Russia with hundreds of additional missiles in stock.
“The launches are not keeping up with production,” said Fabian Hoffmann, a missile expert at the University of Oslo who follows the war in Ukraine. Russia, he said, could be replenishing stocks for contingencies such as a military conflict outside Ukraine or to ratchet up pressure on Kyiv.
Ballistic missiles are already being fired into Ukraine at a higher rate than Ukraine can secure the two types of interceptors capable of shooting them down: American Patriots and French and Italian SAMP/T missiles.
The trend, Mr. Hoffman said, points to a moment when Ukraine would run dry of interceptors to protect Kyiv. “It is of great concern” for those watching missile numbers, he said.
While Mr. Driscoll may have cited the growing stockpiles as a reason for Ukraine to end the war, Mr. Hoffman warned that Russia’s stocks would only shoot up if the fighting stopped.
“If Russia gets away victoriously from this war, they might feel very adventurous in the future and have a massive stockpile of long-range armaments,” he said.
Ivan Nechepurenko contributed reporting from Moscow.
Andrew E. Kramer is the Kyiv bureau chief for The Times, who has been covering the war in Ukraine since 2014.
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