Russian barrage in Ukraine’s capital region kills 17 as air defenses fall short

Russian missile and drone strikes on Kyiv and the surrounding region killed 17 people and wounded 44 others, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said.

Russian attacks on Kyiv and its surrounding region killed 17 people and wounded dozens, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Wednesday, as Ukraine’s depleted air defenses failed to stop any of Moscow’s incoming missiles overnight.

The barrage, which lasted about two hours, was the latest in a series of large-scale Russian missile strikes that have become almost routine this summer. Moscow is exploiting Ukraine’s critical shortage of interceptors for the U.S.-made Patriot systems, the sole air defense weapon in its arsenal able to shoot down ballistic missiles.

Zelenskyy has pleaded with other countries, especially the U.S., to send more of the ammunition made scarcer by the Iran war. Failing that, he wants to make Patriot ammunition in Ukraine or win permission from Elon Musk to use his Starlink satellite communications system to guide strikes inside Russia that can hit its missile launchers.

It’s unclear how many interceptors Ukraine has left. Zelenskyy said after a Russian aerial attack Friday night that air defenses shot down only one ballistic missile “solely because there are no missiles for the Patriots.” Supplies of air defense missiles for Ukraine in the first half of this year fell to one-third of the 2025 level, Zelenskyy said.

“Ballistic interceptors are what could have saved the lives of those killed today,” Zelenskyy said Wednesday on social media. “It is very important for our partners to understand that delays in supplying them, or a reluctance to hand over anti-ballistic systems, lead directly to such horrific casualties and destruction.”