Ukraine’s Patriot Stocks Run Dry as Russia Presses On
Ukraine’s stock of Patriot interceptor missiles has “run dry”, President Zelensky said, as he reworked his diplomacy to speed the deliveries allies promised at last week’s NATO summit. Russian attacks over the past day killed at least five people and wounded dozens, while Ukraine struck back at Russia’s oil economy, hitting a major refinery at Syzran, deep inside Russia. The interceptor shortage leaves Ukrainian cities increasingly exposed to the ballistic missiles their remaining defences cannot stop.
The empty Patriot magazines are the crux of Ukraine’s summer: the interceptors are the only reliable defence against Russia’s ballistic missiles, they are made nowhere near the rate Russia fires them, and running out means the mass barrages on Kyiv and the border cities land with less resistance. It is why Zelensky’s push at Ankara was specifically for interceptors and the licence to build them, and why the gap between pledges and deliveries is now measured in lives. Ukraine’s counter is to make Russia’s war costlier, striking refineries and tankers to squeeze the oil revenue that funds it — a campaign that intersects, this week, with the Gulf crisis driving oil higher. With Russia’s own summer advance reported to have stalled at heavy cost, the war has become a contest of exhaustion. Watch whether the promised air defences arrive, and whether the strikes on Russian energy bite.