Russian Missiles Kill Fourteen in Kyiv on Summit Eve
Russia struck Kyiv overnight with 68 missiles and 351 drones, killing at least 14 people and injuring 117 — the second mass-casualty attack on the capital within days. Ukraine’s air force downed 37 missiles and 326 drones, but none of the 23 ballistic and six hypersonic weapons; a nine-storey residential block was destroyed from the fifth floor up. President Zelensky demanded “strong decisions” from tomorrow’s NATO summit: “The USA and Europe have enough strength to stop this terror.”
The interception numbers are the story Kyiv will carry into Ankara: everything slow was stopped, and nothing ballistic was — because only Patriot systems reliably intercept ballistic missiles and Ukraine is running short of interceptors. An attack this size on the summit’s eve reads as Moscow’s answer to the week’s diplomacy, and independent analysts assess the Kremlin’s parallel claim to have seized Kostiantynivka as a targeted information campaign rather than a verified capture — Zelensky noted Putin “will never dare to appear there”. Watch what the summit actually delivers on air defence: interceptor numbers, not communiqué language.