Russian Summer Offensive Continues Overnight; Putin Air-Defence Vow Lands After London Summit
Russian forces continued large-scale missile and drone barrages against Ukrainian cities overnight Monday-Tuesday as President Vladimir Putin’s vow to bolster Russian air defences in response to the Ukrainian Kronstadt and St Petersburg drone wave continues to dominate the Russian operational planning. The London Coalition of the Willing summit Sunday coordinated additional Patriot interceptor replenishment for Ukraine. Russia-Ukraine bilateral diplomatic track remains closed after Putin’s Friday rejection of Zelensky’s face-to-face meeting offer.
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. Russian Geran-2 attack drones are produced at a rate of around 5,000 per month. The Ukrainian 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. ISW reports the Russian ultranationalist community presented extreme and unrealistic scenarios for Russia’s military future at SPIEF, indicating Kremlin domestic pressure to escalate the air-defence build-up.