Russia launched its largest ballistic missile attack on Kyiv since the invasion began, hitting the Ukrainian capital with a barrage that exploited the country’s acute shortage of Patriot air defense munitions.
The attack, reported by Ukrainian officials on Sunday, underscores a growing vulnerability in Ukraine’s air defense network. Ballistic missiles are harder to intercept than cruise missiles, and Ukraine’s supply of Patriot interceptors, the only system reliably capable of shooting them down, has been dwindling as Western allies struggle to keep up with the pace of consumption.
Ukraine has been warning its partners for months that the Patriot shortage was creating a dangerous gap. Russia appears to have taken note. The scale of the barrage on Sunday was described by officials as the largest ballistic missile salvo directed at the capital in the entire war.
The specific targets and casualty figures were still being assessed as emergency crews worked through the debris. But the choice of weapon and target tells its own story: Russia is going after what Ukraine can least afford to defend.
Ballistic missiles travel at hypersonic speeds and follow a high-arcing trajectory that makes them far more difficult to track and intercept than the subsonic cruise missiles Russia has used in earlier mass attacks. Each Patriot Advanced Capability-3 interceptor costs roughly $4 million, and Ukraine has been burning through them at a rate that exceeds resupply.
The attack comes at a moment when Ukraine is under pressure on multiple fronts. Its defense minister was recently removed, sparking anger among soldiers on the front lines. Drone strikes on Russian logistics have given Ukraine tactical victories, like the strike on Wildberries warehouses that killed eight, but Russia retains the ability to inflict mass destruction on Ukrainian cities from a distance, with weapons Ukraine cannot stop.
Sunday’s barrage is a reminder that the war’s trajectory is not only shaped by drones and special operations. Russia still has a deep arsenal of ballistic missiles, a willingness to use them against civilian population centers, and an understanding that Ukraine’s ability to defend its own sky is running out.