Russian Strikes Kill 18 Across Ukraine in Latest Mass Drone-Missile Barrage
Russian forces launched hundreds of drones and dozens of missiles against Kyiv and other Ukrainian cities, killing at least 18 civilians in the latest mass drone-missile barrage of the early-summer Russian offensive. Residential buildings in Kyiv were damaged. President Volodymyr Zelensky has appealed for more US and European air-defence missiles. US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told reporters Saturday the US will “find a way” to help Ukraine defend itself; the operational delivery of additional Patriot interceptors remains constrained.
The Kyiv apartment-building strike was the most significant residential-area Russian strike on the Ukrainian capital since the early phase of the war. Each Patriot PAC-3 MSE interceptor costs roughly $4 million and is produced at a constrained rate of around 600 per year industry-wide. The US redirect to the Iran theatre during the war removed several batteries from the Ukraine pipeline; Hegseth’s “find a way” signal becomes operationally relevant if the Iran framework deal signs and Patriot replenishment can resume. Russian Geran-2 attack drones are produced at a rate of around 5,000 per month. The combination of the Russian missile-drone barrage and the Ukrainian SPIEF strike forms the operational picture of the early-summer offensive phase.