Ukraine Deep-Strike Campaign Continues Into Post-London-Summit Phase
Ukraine’s deep-strike campaign against Russian infrastructure continues into the post-London-summit phase. The Saturday Kronstadt naval base strike on a guided-missile corvette and the second large St Petersburg drone wave (Russia intercepting 376 drones) closed the Ukrainian SPIEF-week campaign. President Volodymyr Zelensky declared it was time to end the war; Russia rejected. Russian drone strikes killed at least two in Ukraine overnight Saturday-Sunday. The London summit coordinated additional Patriot interceptor replenishment for Ukraine.
Kronstadt is the historic naval base of the Russian Baltic Fleet. A successful Ukrainian drone strike on a guided-missile corvette at Kronstadt represents a major escalation in the Ukrainian naval-targeting campaign and a significant tactical setback for the Baltic Fleet. The 376-drone Russian intercept figure was the largest reported by Russian air defences in a single wave since the early phase of the war. The Ukrainian deep-strike campaign against Russian state-prestige targets during the SPIEF flagship event materially affected the Kremlin’s economic-diplomatic positioning. 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 London-summit replenishment commitment is the principal short-term Western response.