President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says Ukraine has received more United States-made Patriot air defence systems to help it counter Russian attacks.
The sophisticated Patriot systems are the most effective weapons against Russian missiles that have been used to kill thousands of people in Russia’s war on Ukraine, launched almost four years ago.
Zelenskyy had pleaded with Western partners to provide more of these systems, but production limitations and the need to maintain stockpiles slowed their delivery.
“More Patriots are now in Ukraine and being put into operation,” Zelenskyy posted on social media late on Sunday. “Of course, more systems are needed to protect key infrastructure sites and our cities across the entire territory of our state.”
NATO is coordinating regular deliveries of large weapons packages to Ukraine, with European allies and Canada buying much of the equipment from the US, which has greater stocks of available military material as well as more effective weapons.
The Trump administration is not providing arms to Ukraine as readily as his predecessor, Joe Biden, did.
Latest attacks
In a late-night attack, Russian drones killed a man and injured five of his family members, including two children, in Ukraine’s northeastern Sumy region. Two women were also injured in a separate Sumy attack.
Overnight into Monday, Russia launched 12 missiles of various types and 138 strike and decoy drones, Ukraine’s air force said.
“The Russians cynically targeted people – deliberately, at night, while they were sleeping,” regional head Oleh Hryhorov wrote on Telegram in response to the attacks.
Russian missiles started a fire at a business in the central Dnipro region, injuring one man, regional head Vladyslav Haivanenko said.
Russia has also targeted Ukraine’s energy supply to deny civilians heat and running water in winter, as well as to disrupt industrial production of Ukraine’s newly developed drones and missiles.
Its drones hit energy infrastructure in the southern Mykolaiv region.
Meanwhile, Ukrainian forces struck Russia’s Saratov oil refinery overnight and started a fire, according to the General Staff of the Ukrainian Armed Forces. It was Ukraine’s fourth attack on the Saratov installation in almost seven weeks.
The refinery, located some 500km (300 miles) from the border, can process several million metric tonnes of oil annually.
Ukraine also said it hit Russian military logistical facilities in the occupied region of Luhansk.
Zelenskyy claimed last week that long-range strikes on Russian refineries have reduced Moscow’s oil refining capacity by 20 percent.
Russia claimed on Monday that its troops had advanced in the Ukrainian city of Pokrovsk, a transport and logistics hub that Moscow’s forces have been seeking to capture for more than a year.
Russia’s Defence Ministry said its soldiers were destroying what it described as surrounded Ukrainian formations near Pokrovsk’s railway station and industrial zone, and had entered the city’s Prigorodny area.
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