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Patriot plea as strikes surge
Russian forces struck Ukraine’s Izmail port in southern Odesa, setting off a fire, according to the Izmail Regional State Administration statement on the Telegram app early on Thursday.
“Russian forces struck Ukraine’s Izmail port in southern Odesa, setting off a fire”
The attacks came a day after Kyiv pounded Russia’s Novorossiysk port, and Izmail—close to the Romanian border—is home to Ukraine’s largest Danube port handling grain and other commodities.
In a CNN interview, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Ukraine needs 5 percent of the United States’s Patriot interceptor missiles to get through the winter and 10 percent to destroy all of Russia’s ballistic projectiles.
Zelenskyy also said Ukraine this year “had two and a half times less interceptors than we had in 2025,” while “Russia has two times more ballistic missiles per month than they had before,” and he added, “I’m asking American partners to sell me 5 percent of missiles [that] they have in their stocks.”
Reporting changes and missed intercepts
Ukraine has stopped publicly reporting how many missiles Russia fires during major attacks as Kyiv scrambles to secure more air-defense interceptors from allies, the Kyiv Post reported.
The Ukrainian Air Force said its forces downed 98 of 120 Russian drones launched overnight but did not disclose how many missiles were fired or intercepted, even as Zaporizhzhia, the Dnipropetrovsk region, and Kyiv were targeted by more than a dozen ballistic missiles.
The change followed a decision days earlier to stop reporting interceptions of Russian ballistic missiles after a major attack last week in which Ukraine was unable to intercept any of 28 ballistic missiles fired at the country.
In the same period, Ukraine’s Defense Ministry data cited by the Kyiv Post said Russia launched 195 ballistic missiles of various types in July, with Ukraine intercepting just 29 and 40 failing to reach their targets, while Maj. Robert “Madyar” Brovdi said Russia can currently launch a simultaneous salvo of about 77 ballistic missiles and is seeking to raise that figure to 200.
Europe’s limits and the winter risk
Europe is scrambling for more Patriot interceptors to donate to Ukraine ahead of Russia’s expected winter assault, POLITICO.eu reported, with Kyiv seeking hundreds of interceptors.
“Over the last few months, Russia fires more missiles a week at us than we get from partners over months”
POLITICO.eu said “Over the last few months, Russia fires more missiles a week at us than we get from partners over months,” quoting former Ukrainian Defense Minister Mykhailo Fedorov.
Brig. Gen. Jürgen Schrödl, a senior German defense ministry official, told a panel in Berlin that “We are really reaching our limits here,” and the article added that Germany must balance Kyiv’s needs against minimum stocks required to protect Germany and meet NATO commitments.
With Patriot dependence tied to U.S. production, POLITICO.eu reported that U.S. Ambassador to NATO Matthew Whitaker said “A long-term production agreement will not be concluded before this winter,” leaving Kyiv to press for immediate interceptors as Zelenskyy warned, “Right now I have only 1%.”
