Russia’s Barrage Kills Eight in Ukraine as Defences Run Low
A mass Russian attack on Ukraine — ballistic and cruise missiles and more than 120 drones — killed at least eight people and wounded dozens, with glide bombs on Sumy killing five. President Zelensky again pressed allies to speed the air defences promised at last week’s NATO summit, warning that Ukraine is critically short of the Patriot interceptors that are its only reliable defence against Russia’s ballistic missiles. More than sixty people have been killed in the Kyiv region alone this month.
With the world’s attention fixed on the Gulf, Russia’s war grinds on at undiminished intensity, and the empty Patriot magazines are the crux of Ukraine’s summer: the interceptors are made nowhere near the rate Russia fires missiles, and running out means the barrages on Kyiv and the border cities land with less resistance. The glide bombs that killed civilians in Sumy are the weapon Ukraine can least counter, cheap and heavy and released from aircraft standing off beyond the front. Zelensky’s push at the Ankara summit was specifically for interceptors and the licence to build them, and the gap between pledges and deliveries is measured in lives. The two wars now intersect through oil, as the Gulf crisis and Ukraine’s strikes on Russian refineries both push prices higher. Watch whether the promised air defences arrive before the next barrage, and whether Russia exploits the distraction of the Gulf.