Ukraine war briefing: We will build missiles the way we built drones – Zelenskyy
Volodymr Zelenskyy has said he wants “concrete results” by the end of this year on producing an anti-ballistic missile defence system for Ukraine. Zelenskyy referred to Ukraine’s role in the Freyja programme to jointly develop a European anti-ballistic system as an alternative to Patriot. “Ukraine is capable of producing its missile and launcher, while our partners will provide the necessary components and critical elements – radars, sensors, and everything else required … Others spent decades developing their systems. Ukraine must do this as quickly as possible, with concrete results already in place by the turn of 2026–2027.”
Zelenskyy said on Thursday night that he had met with senior officials on how to accelerate development “so that Ukrainian weapons manufacturers and developers can deliver real results … We are creating all the necessary conditions to make that happen.” On the offensive side, “Ukraine is also working to develop ballistic missiles of its own. The tests have shown strong potential. We need to turn this into a real weapon.”
The Kyiv region observed an official day of mourning on Thursday after a Russian missile and drone blitz killed 17 people the previous day. In the first six months of this year, 1,396 civilians were killed and 7,978 injured in Ukraine, the UN office in Kyiv said on Wednesday. That was a 37% increase from the same period last year and a 114% jump over 2024, it said, attributing the rise to more long-range aerial attacks by Russia.
On the day that Kyiv mourned its dead, the head of the UN appeared to put the blame for civilian casualties on both sides. “These latest series of attacks follow an alarming pattern of escalating strikes against populated areas,” said Farhan Haq, a spokesperson for António Guterres, the UN secretary general. “The secretary general strongly condemns the latest large-scale missile and drone attacks by the armed forces of the Russian Federation on Kyiv and other cities in Ukraine … [Guterres] also condemns the recent Ukrainian drone attacks on several regions of the Russian Federation.” Russia has adjusted its rhetoric lately to claim that its evident strikes killing Ukrainian civilians are targeting military facilities, or militarised civilian sites such as warehouses, ports and logistics depots, while portraying Ukrainian strikes on military and economic targets in Russia as being aimed at civilians. Russian forces have continually bombarded civilians with anti-personnel explosive FPV drones in Ukrainian centres including Kherson, Zaporizhzhia and Kharkiv.
A drone carrying explosives that was found at Leipzig airport had come down near a Ukrainian aircraft loaded with military ammunition, according to a classified police report quoted by the German public broadcasters WDR and NDR and the Süddeutsche newspaper. Deborah Cole reports from Berlin that the German interior minister, Alexander Dobrindt, said only an apparently “ripped” detonator had prevented the device going off near Ukrainian cargo planes on the tarmac at the shipping and military hub.
Ukraine hit more oil facilities deep inside Russia, Zelenskyy said on Thursday. Targets included a refinery in Russia’s Bashkortostan region, more than 1,300km (800 miles) from the frontline, as well as a refinery in the Yaroslavl region, almost 700km into Russia. The Yaroslavl governor, Mikhail Yevrayev, confirmed an attack on a refinery, saying oil reservoirs were set on fire. Ukrainian forces hit two Russian military patrol boats in the Black Sea, Zelenskyy said, along with vessels belonging to Moscow’s so-called shadow fleet, which Russia uses to evade western restrictions on its oil exports. He did not give any details. The Russian defence ministry said its air defences shot down 605 Ukrainian drones over its territory.
Ukraine will provide assistance to farmers hit by Russian attacks on shipping and port facilities, Zelenskyy said. Subsidised credits and other assistance with financing would “begin to be implemented in the coming days”. The governor of Ukraine’s Odesa Region, Oleh Kiper, said on Thursday that a Russian attack had damaged a foreign-flagged ship loaded with wheat in Ukraine’s Black Sea area, killing one crew member and causing a fire. Ukraine’s seaports authority identified the ship as sailing under the flag of Guinea-Bissau. Ukraine had established a Black Sea corridor for safe passage of shipping along the coast towards Romania, but ships have recently come under attack in the area.
Zelenskyy will on Saturday make his first visit to Serbia since Russia’s invasion. “We need to pull the Serbs away from Russia’s side,” a senior Ukrainian official told Agence France-Presse, calling Zelenskyy’s visit to Belgrade a “slap in the face for the Russians”. Serbia’s president, Aleksandar Vučić, has held talks with Vladimir Putin and maintained friendly relations with Moscow while also trying to join the European Union. Vučić’s office confirmed what it described as an “official visit” by Zelenskyy. While Zelenskyy would state his position, Serbia’s policy “will remain the case until further notice”, it added.
Sweden will hand over to Kyiv a seized Russian “shadow fleet” cargo ship which Ukraine says transported grain stolen from its occupied territory, Swedish court documents obtained by AFP on Thursday showed. The supreme court on 4 August dismissed an appeal by Caffa Shipping Ltd, which owns the 96-metre (315-foot) Caffa, to block the transfer requested by Ukraine and approved by two lower courts in Sweden. The Caffa, sailing under a false Guinean flag, was headed for St Petersburg, Russia when armed Swedish police boarded it on 6 March off Trelleborg on its southern coast. Ten of the 11 crew on board were Russian nationals.
