I see your point, but is that not partly because weapon sales to Ukraine is very limited? They’re not getting fighter jets, they’re not getting good offensive weapons (or if they do, they come with significant strings attached, like they have to promise not to hit certain regions or targets within Russia). But there are no such limits for interceptors. And interceptors are very expensive, so it’s small wonder that they’d quickly eat through your budget.

I mean, Ukraine is quite conservative with their use of Patriots, so they might only use them for missiles and only use a single interceptors (rather than throwing 2-3 Patriots at a drone like Israel does). But even so, they could have gotten a Gripen F for the price of 25 PAC-3 interceptors, if we’re just considering the price here. The problem is to get approval for the purchase (not gonna happen) and even if you did, get the planes delivered within a reasonable time frame (not gonna happen, would take years).

So there are the limits on what the West actually allows for export to Ukraine, and also the actual supply. A lot of the export has been theoretical, and slow to deliver, because the West wants to keep a lot of weapons in case they need it. And they know that they’re slow to produce more.