Russian missile attacks on Kyiv expose weakness in Ukraine's air defense

Geoff Bennett:

A massive Russian missile attack killed nearly two dozen people across Ukraine overnight. Such strikes have become almost routine this summer, as Moscow looks to exploit a critical air defense shortage in Ukraine.

Amna Nawaz:

That shortage is of the U.S.-made Patriot interceptor, the only air defense weapon capable of shooting down a Russian ballistic missile.

Stephanie Sy has our report.

Stephanie Sy:

Overnight, a towering inferno. Firefighters worked all night long to put out the fires of Russia's latest deadly ballistic missile attack on Ukraine's capital city. Moscow says its targets were warehouses and businesses with military ties.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said the sites had nothing to do with the war, sites like this train station platform, now strewn with body bags. The U.N. said at least 20 people were killed across Ukraine, most of them in and around Kyiv. For many, it was yet another night of terror.

Woman (through interpreter):

We haven't slept for five years now. There's no sleep. People live in constant fear, constant fear. We live day to day. That's all.

Stephanie Sy:

Ukraine has been launching its own strikes into Russia, long-range drones hitting warehouses belonging to Wildberries, Russia's biggest online retailer. Ukraine targeted over a dozen Wildberries facilities in just the last three weeks, accusing it of supplying the Russian military.

Meanwhile, Russian state media says the director of one of its major drone suppliers was gravely injured in a car explosion. In the past, Moscow has blamed Ukraine for such attacks. Meeting today with British allies, President Zelenskyy warned of Russia's ballistic missile capabilities.

Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Ukrainian President:

They don't want to stop, and I think that they want to continue and increase escalation using the ballistic missiles.

Stephanie Sy:

The most recent missile barrage shows the vulnerability of Ukraine's depleted air defenses. None of the Russian missiles were intercepted overnight. Ukraine's supply of Patriot missile interceptors has been especially tight this year, with the U.S. supplying only one-third of the Patriots it gave Kyiv last year.

President Donald Trump:

We will give them the right to make Patriots. We will show them how to do it.

Stephanie Sy:

And after promising Ukraine the ability to build Patriot missiles, President Trump backtracked on that last week.

Donald Trump:

We have, in the case of President Zelenskyy, he'd like to have some Patriots, he'd like to have some Tomahawks. We have not agreed to that. We're talking about it. But it's a hard thing to give away that kind of technology. And I don't think this would ever happen. But those people that you give that technology, they can someday turn on you.

Stephanie Sy:

Reuters reports the Pentagon has exhausted virtually all of its long-range precision missiles, including nearly half of its Tomahawks, during the war with Iran.

President Trump has said in the past that the U.S. needs to be judicious with its missile supplies, but forcefully disputed the Reuters report, saying: "With regards to munitions, the military has far more than we need."

For the "PBS News Hour," I'm Stephanie Sy.