Kyiv Under Missile Attack, Trump Retracts Patriot Pledge, Zelenskyy Seeks Starlink Aid

Kyiv was once again under attack by ballistic missiles early on Saturday with at least nine people killed, according to emergency services. “Fires and destruction occurred in five districts of the capital,” the state emergency service posted, adding that another 23 people were wounded in the attack. It came as Donald Trump retreated further from a promise to let Ukraine manufacture its own Patriot air defence interceptors, which it desperately needs to shoot down Russian missiles. More than a ‌dozen explosions reverberated through Kyiv, and residents were warned to stay in shelters.

In Kyiv’s Darnytsky district, the attacks damaged multiple buildings and vehicles, with authorities reporting seven people killed and 14 wounded in the area. Two people were killed and eight others were wounded in Solomiansky district, where strikes damaged a five-storey residential building. “Everything was smashed, the windows, everything,” 75-year-old resident Kateryna Kravchenko told AFP of her apartment. “I can barely stand. I don’t know how I’m going to get through all this.” The emergency service said on Saturday morning that 105 people in Kyiv had been rescued from impacted areas.

Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Friday urged Trump and other US officials to help Ukraine gain permission from Elon Musk to use satellite internet service Starlink for guiding strikes inside Russia. Zelenskyy made the request directly to Trump during an Oval Office meeting this week, according to one person familiar with the matter. He also reportedly told lawmakers later on Capitol Hill that he wanted Starlink’s help. Trump did not commit to Zelenskyy’s request. Musk allows Starlink use within Ukraine, including Russian-occupied areas, but restricts it inside Russia.

During a cabinet meeting at Camp David, Trump told reporters that handing over the underlying Patriot technology was “a hard thing” to do. Ukraine’s Zelensky had met Trump earlier this week and said Trump had agreed to license the production of Patriot missiles to Ukraine. Asked whether he was ready to grant Kyiv a licence to build Patriots domestically – something he had suggested at a Nato summit in Turkey just this month – Trump said: “We have not agreed to that. We’re talking about it, but it’s a hard thing to give away that kind of technology.” Giving away the weapons carried its own risks, he added: “People that you give that technology [to], they can some day turn on you. You know that is possible.”

Several thousand Ukrainians rallied in central Kyiv on Friday, angry about Zelenskyy’s decision to ⁠oust the defence minister, Mykhailo Fedorov. Fedorov is ​widely credited with driving military innovation during Ukraine’s war with Russia. But having taken charge of the wartime ministry in January, he was dismissed in a surprise government reshuffle ⁠in mid-July. Since then, Ukrainians have been gathering next to the presidential office, pushing for Fedorov to be reinstated as he refused to accept another government post.

Russia’s main grain lobby group warned on Friday that Ukrainian drone attacks on Russian ships and ports could shut down grain exports via the Black Sea, pushing up ⁠prices and causing hunger in ⁠Africa and the Middle East. Russia, the ​world’s largest wheat exporter, and Ukraine, also a large agricultural exporter, have been attacking each other’s facilities and vessels in the Black Sea area in recent weeks, driving wheat prices higher. The disruption to shipping in the Black Sea ⁠caused by Ukrainian attacks “poses a direct threat to global food security”, Russia’s Union of Grain Exporters and Producers told Reuters.

Ukrainian drone attacks on Russian online retailer Wildberries amount to “acts ⁠of terrorism” against civilians, affecting millions of people in Russia and other countries, the company’s founder ⁠and CEO, Tatyana ⁠Kim, ​complained on Friday. Ukraine has attacked more than a dozen Wildberries sites since 18 July in ⁠a bid to disrupt the operations of the company, a vendor to the Russian war effort and linchpin of Russia’s consumer economy.