Kyiv, Ukraine – On the sunny morning of July 24, three Russian missiles whizzed towards Kyiv. Ukraine’s air defence downed only one because of a dire, desperate lack of Western-made missile interceptors, and the other two struck a sports centre that hosted an exhibition of drones. The ear-popping, earth-shattering strikes wounded more than 100 people and killed 12, including Valentyna Savitska, a fair-haired, 32-year-old border security officer and mother of two.
His son Vladyslav, 15, is now determined to join the military as “his choice is revenge, revenge for mum,” said Solovey, who heads the government-run Center for Strategic Communication that analyses and refutes Russian disinformation. His daughter Polyna, 11, is still recuperating. And [Polyna] already understands that she lost it all,” Solovey said.
Russia also sent nearly 5,000 long- and short-range drones and hundreds of gliding guided bombs that collapsed entire buildings in front-line areas. Survivors often lose their houses and belongings. One of the missiles exploded just metres away from Kateryna Babych’s two-bedroom apartment in central Kyiv on July 2, in what became the war’s largest and deadliest attack that left 31 dead and more than 100 wounded.
Within seconds, the blast turned her apartment building into a concrete mess. Broken windows and shockwave-disfigured doors were engulfed in the fire as suffocating smoke rose. Babych, 47, said she was more worried about her son Dmitry, who got a concussion and had his meniscus torn after a wardrobe fell on him.
Observers blame the record number of attacks and casualties on United States President Donald Trump’s refusal to supply PAC 2 and PAC 3 missile interceptors for US-made Patriot air defence systems. Each interceptor costs several million dollars, and only about 50 can be manufactured monthly at the Lockheed Martin factory in Arkansas. The White House redirected the supplies to its Middle East allies following Washington’s and Israel’s attacks on Iran – and also decided to beef up its own strategic stash.
Kyiv only has a tenth of the interceptors it needs, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy told CNN on August 12. If Washington “sells us 5 percent [of its current missile stash], we will go through the winter and save people’s lives. If they can sell us 10 percent, we will destroy all the Russians’ ballistic missiles,” Zelenskyy said.
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