BELGRADE, Serbia — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky denounced Russia’s latest deadly attacks on Kyiv on Saturday as he visited Serbia, one of the few European countries that has maintained friendly relations with Moscow throughout its war on Ukraine.
Four people, including a child, were killed in the overnight strikes on Kyiv and the surrounding region. Ukrainian forces hit Russian oil facilities.
Zelensky arrived in Belgrade on Friday for his first official visit to Serbia.
Speaking at a news conference in Belgrade with Zelensky, Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic described Ukraine as a “friendly nation” and said he was honored to welcome the Ukrainian leader — the first visit by a Ukrainian president in eight years.
The two leaders discussed their countries’ efforts toward joining the European Union, bilateral ties and ways to expand cooperation.
Kyiv’s residents face regular drone and missile barrages that Ukraine’s depleted air defenses are struggling to counter amid Moscow’s four-year-old full-scale invasion, while repeated Ukrainian strikes on oil facilities have caused fuel shortages and rattled Russians.
Zelensky blames ‘paperwork’ for Patriot delays
Vucic, who has maintained close ties with Moscow and refused to sanction Russia over the invasion — drawing pressure from the EU to change course — reiterated that Serbia respects Ukraine’s territorial integrity and said that position would not change.
“The situation in Ukraine is difficult,” Zelensky said at the news conference. “There was another missile strike last night — ballistic missiles targeting our infrastructure. There were also attack drones.”
Zelensky said that deliveries of U.S.-made Patriot air defense interceptors — the sole air defense weapon in Ukraine’s arsenal able to shoot down ballistic missiles — have slowed compared with a year ago.
“There are fewer of these missiles in 2026. In 2025 there were more, I’ll tell you honestly, in terms of monthly supplies,” he said.
Zelensky said that Washington has agreed to let Ukraine manufacture its own Patriot air defense interceptors, but that they are “stuck dealing with paperwork.”
“The process for some of these licenses is also taking a long time,” he said.
Boy, grandparents killed
The talks in Belgrade came after Russian drones destroyed the home of a family in the Brovary district, northeast of Kyiv, killing a 3-year-old child and his grandparents, local officials said.
Three other members of the family and a neighbor who came to their aid were hospitalized, local authorities said. The attack reduced the house to rubble and wrecked outbuildings and cars.
Zelensky said at least one other person died in a “strike involving six ballistic missiles against civilian infrastructure” in the capital.
In its daily report, Ukraine’s air force said it had downed or intercepted 135 of 151 drones launched by Russia overnight. The attack also involved six ballistic missiles and other guided missiles.
Russia has relentlessly pounded civilian areas of Ukraine, even though Moscow insists its forces target only military facilities.
Ukraine’s air defenses shot down about 5,300 drones and missiles last month, Ukraine’s Defense Ministry said Friday, just under 60% of the roughly 9,000 attack drones and missiles Russia fired in the same period.
Moscow is exploiting Ukraine’s shortage of interceptors for the Patriot systems.
Zelensky has pleaded with other countries, especially the U.S., to send more of the ammunition made scarcer by the Iran war. Failing that, he wants to make Patriot ammunition in Ukraine or win permission from Elon Musk to use his Starlink satellite communications system to guide strikes inside Russia that can hit its missile launchers.
Following the latest attacks, Zelensky appealed on X for more sanctions to “prevent the production of these ballistic missiles,” along with “anti-ballistic capabilities” and “interceptor missiles.”
Ukraine strikes Russian oil facilities
In Russia, six people were wounded when a fire broke out at the Ilsky Oil Refinery in the southern Krasnodar region after debris fell from a downed drone, local officials said.
Ukraine’s General Staff said Ukrainian forces struck the refinery in Krasnodar, along with the Syzran Oil Refinery in the Samara region, more than 500 miles inside Russia.
Vyacheslav Fedorishchev, governor of Russia’s Samara region, said drones hit an “industrial enterprise,” but he did not mention the refinery.
Ukraine’s almost daily long-range drone and missile strikes using domestically developed weapons have battered Russian oil facilities for months. The operation has brought a fuel crisis that is embarrassing the Kremlin.
Gec and Yurchuk write for the Associated Press. Yurchuk reported from Kyiv. AP writer Elise Morton in London contributed to this report.
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