ORESHNIK STRIKE PUTS UKRAINE AIR DEFENSE BACK IN FOCUS

Russia’s latest attack on Kyiv is shifting attention from the scale of the bombardment to Ukraine’s ability to defend against the weapons used in it. The weekend strike included Russia’s Oreshnik hypersonic ballistic missile, which Reuters reported was used against Ukraine for only the third time since Russia’s full-scale invasion began in 2022.

The attack was large even by the standards of the war. Ukraine’s air force said Russia launched 90 missiles and 600 drones, while Ukrainian defenses destroyed or jammed 549 drones and 55 missiles, according to the Associated Press. Ukrainian officials said the assault damaged buildings across Kyiv, including residential buildings, schools, a market, and areas near government offices.

The Oreshnik strike is what gives the attack broader significance. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said the missile struck Bila Tserkva, a city southwest of Kyiv, while Reuters reported that the weapon has a range of several thousand kilometres. AP reported that Zelenskyy said not all ballistic missiles were intercepted and that Ukraine continues to rely heavily on U.S.-made Patriot systems to stop those weapons, with interceptors remaining in short supply.

That shortage is becoming one of Ukraine’s most urgent defense issues. Drones can be countered by a wider range of air-defense systems, electronic warfare, and mobile fire teams. Ballistic missiles are harder to intercept, and hypersonic systems compress the time available for warning and response. The result is a growing gap between Ukraine’s ability to absorb large drone attacks and its ability to reliably stop the most advanced missiles in mixed barrages.

Russia described the attack as retaliation for Ukrainian strikes on what Moscow called civilian targets. The claim followed a strike on a dormitory in Russian-controlled Luhansk that Russian authorities said killed 21 people. Ukraine denied responsibility for attacking civilians, saying it struck an elite drone command unit in the area, and Reuters said it could not independently verify what happened.

The strike cycle has continued beyond Kyiv. Reuters reported Monday that at least eight people were killed in missile and drone attacks across Russian and Ukrainian-held territory over the previous 24 hours, with damage reported to energy infrastructure in Russia’s Belgorod region and deaths and injuries reported in Ukraine’s Kherson, Kharkiv, Dnipropetrovsk, and Zaporizhzhia regions.

For Ukraine’s allies, the central question is becoming less about whether Kyiv needs air defense and more about which systems can realistically protect cities from mixed attacks involving drones, cruise missiles, ballistic missiles, and hypersonic weapons at the same time. Without more interceptors and layered defenses, Ukraine may continue to stop large numbers of drones while remaining vulnerable to the missiles that cause the most difficult-to-prevent damage.

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