Russia Strikes Kyiv for a Second Day Running
Russian drone and missile attacks across Ukraine killed at least four people, including two in Kyiv, the second consecutive day the capital was struck — the barrages landing as NATO leaders gathered in Ankara and Washington moved to arm Ukraine’s air defences. The timing, on the summit’s doorstep, fits a pattern of Russian strikes calibrated to the diplomatic calendar.
The strikes are the counterpoint to the Patriot announcement: Moscow demonstrating the very ballistic-missile threat that the interceptors are meant to blunt, at the moment the alliance commits to countering it. Ukraine’s answer this week has been asymmetric — long-range drones on Russian refineries and shadow-fleet tankers, the campaign Trump has now openly encouraged — a war in which each side escalates precisely because a settlement may be near. The civilian toll in Kyiv is the pressure Zelensky carried into his meeting with Trump. Watch whether the promised air-defence support translates into interceptors on the ground before the next barrage.