Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Sunday (October 25) that deliveries of interceptor missiles for Patriot air-defence systems, already agreed with European partners, must be unblocked, after a night of Russian drone and missile attacks killed at least four people, ABC News reported.
Source: ABC News via KTBB
Zelenskyy said four people were killed in an attack in the southeastern Dnipropetrovsk region on Saturday evening and another 22 people were injured. Ukraine's air force said Russia launched 153 drones along with cruise missiles overnight, that 119 drones were shot down or otherwise suppressed, and that impacts were reported in 15 locations, according to ABC News.
In a post on X, Zelenskyy said Russian strikes overnight also hit a thermal power plant, electrical substations, coal mines, grain storage facilities, shopping centres and a postal logistics hub, with damage reported in nine regions. He said a drone struck a high-rise apartment building in Vinnytsia, injuring six people, and that in Kharkiv a second strike hit emergency services who had arrived after a first strike on a home-improvement store, injuring first responders — claims made by the Ukrainian president that Russia has not publicly answered in the reports cited here.
Source: Zelenskyy post via Desi Talk Chicago
Only 24 interceptors in three months, Zelenskyy says
Zelenskyy told ABC News in Kyiv last week that Ukraine needs around 350 Patriot interceptors each month to defend against Russian attacks, and that over the last three months Kyiv had received only 24. ABC News reported the tightening supply has been worsened by the US-Israeli conflict with Iran, in which American and allied forces in the Middle East have used large numbers of interceptors against Iranian missiles and drones.
"We need to unblock the already agreed-upon deliveries of interceptors for Patriot systems," Zelenskyy wrote, saying it was crucial to bolster Ukrainian defences alongside renewed US-led peace negotiations. He said Russia had launched around 1,600 guided aerial bombs, 48 missiles of various types and nearly 2,300 attack drones against Ukraine in the past week alone.
Patriot interceptors are Ukraine's main defence against Russian ballistic missiles. A shortage ahead of winter, as strikes hit power plants and substations, leaves cities exposed — and the same interceptor stock is being drawn on in the Middle East war.