[pavlus]

> They still can't produce a domestic ballistic missile at scale, because it's genuinely hard

Also, because it costs a lot and there are only two benefits of ballistic over cruise (if you exclude delivering nuclear payloads, which Ukraine doesn't have): it's very fast and hard to intercept. Both are needed sometimes, but often not a requirement.

Ukraine is comparatively small, so air defenses can be packed close, Russia is big and harder to cover with air defense systems, so drones and cruise missiles are a better investment for Ukraine, since they can overpower the AD locally and are much-much easier and cheaper to produce, meanwhile ballistic is a better investment for Russia, since anti-ballistic systems are even harder to build and cost a lot.