Ukraine has made a desperate appeal to US President Donald Trump to sell it up to 10% of its badly-needed Patriot defence missiles before winter. President Volodymyr Zelensky says Ukraine could destroy all of the Kremlin’s deadly ballistic missiles and save lives with just 10% of the US Patriots.
Recent Attacks and Civilian Casualties
Last night Russian forces launched 133 drones at Ukraine, hitting 15 locations and killing two more civilians in Odesa and wounding five in Dnipropetrovsk region and another in Zaporizhzhia. Zelensky is keen to acquire Patriots before winter as Russia will likely weaponise the bitter cold by targeting civilian energy supplies.
But it is widely-reported the US has depleted its Patriot stocks by up to a third throughout its five month war with Iran, defending against Tehran’s firepower. American weapons manufacturers have been told to speed up production of the Patriots, which are usually produced at a rate of around 650 a-year.
Zelensky's Appeal for Missiles
President Zelensky said: "This year I’m asking American partners to sell me five per cent of missiles, what they have in their stocks. If they sell us five per cent we will go through the winter and save people’s lives. If they can sell us 10%, we will destroy all the Russians’ ballistic missiles."
In July, Ukraine intercepted just 29 of the 195 ballistic missiles fired by Vladimir Putin’s military - many of them at civilians. Last month was the deadliest for Ukraine’s civilians since the full-scale invasion was launched in 2022.
Rising Civilian Toll and Russian Production
At least 437 civilians were killed and 2,610 injured in Ukraine in July, a 30 per cent increase compared with the previous month and a 70 per cent increase compared with July 2025. Zelensky argued: "Russia has two times more ballistic missiles per month than they had before." It is believed Moscow is producing 1,000 ballistic missiles a-year and now it is stepping up production and also buying in North Korean missiles.
At least 12 people were killed earlier this week by Pyongyang-made ballistic missiles. And Ukrainian intelligence reports claim that Russia's monthly production of key missiles is running up to 20% above target.
Danielle Bell, head of the UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission, said of the Ukrainian casualties: "Every month this year the number of killed and injured civilians has increased. That trend accelerated sharply in July. The number of civilian casualties in July was the highest we documented in a single month since March 2022."
Russia has suffered 1.4 losses of frontline troops to death or injury since war began, according to Ukraine. And Ukrainian forces have recently retaken 26 settlements and pushed Russian troops back across at least six areas of the frontline. The counter-attacks, led by air assault soldiers, have won back roughly 700 square miles of territory for Ukraine.
