Ukraine war briefing: Macron focuses on delivery of missile interceptors as Russian attacks intensify

French president Emmanuel Macron has promised to strengthen support for Ukraine with the delivery of interceptor missiles after a call with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in which they discussed Kyiv’s shortage of air defences. The move comes amid a surge in Russian strikes that have pushed civilian deaths in the war to their highest since the first months of Moscow’s invasion. Macron said they would continue to work with the Anti-Missile Coalition launched at a meeting in Paris on July. The coalition consists of 10 European countries that are developing an anti-ballistic missile system as a cheaper alternative ⁠to the US Patriots. At that time, Macron said France would advance the deployment of the new SAMP/T ​system to Ukraine and license Kyiv to manufacture ​the interceptor missiles, as well as the ​SCALP long-range cruise missile and other munitions. Speaking on the Telegram app, Zelenskyy said: “We agreed to accelerate the delivery of the latest French equipment and missiles,” without providing further details. “Thank you for confirming the readiness to provide licences for missile production.”

President Macron wrote on X: “It is crucial to provide Ukraine with all the necessary means to defend its skies and thwart this aggression.” The Patriot air defence system is the only weapon in Ukraine’s arsenal capable of downing high-speed ballistic missiles used by Russia in its war in Ukraine. Russia has pounded Ukraine – the capital Kyiv especially – with ballistic missile attacks in recent months. The hard-to-intercept super-fast weapons reach their target within minutes, making it virtually impossible for people to reach underground shelters in time.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Saturday that Ukraine’s strikes, which Kyiv says seek to choke off ​financing for Moscow’s war effort, had opened a “Pandora’s box” ‌of Russian retaliation. But Ukraine’s allies in the Coalition of the Willing – an initiative led by France and Britain – will meet on Monday to look at how to ramp up pressure on Moscow to halt its invasion. Diplomacy has stalled with the US, which had brokered several rounds of direct talks between Kyiv and Moscow, but is now focused on its war with Iran.

Macron expressed his “horror and emotion” to Zelenskyy over the attack on a shopping centre in the city of Kryvyi Rih, that killed 16 people as rescuers sifted through the rubble of the site in the president’s home town.

Russia fired a ballistic missile towards Kyiv in the middle of the day – while the German foreign minister Johann Wadephul was visiting on Saturday for talks with Zelenskyy. Two were killed and several wounded in the Boryspil district, on the eastern outskirts of the city. Russia’s defence ministry said it had struck at trucks outfitted for transporting long-range drones near Kyiv, as well as targets linked to the Ukrainian army in the Odesa region on the Black Sea.

The Odesa region’s governor Oleg Kiper said three people had been wounded, including a 16-year-old girl, in a “prolonged and combined strike” that hit a house and grain silos. At least four were killed in a series of strikes on the frontline region of Zaporizhzhia, Ukrainian officials said.

Ukrainian drones killed at least 10 people in attacks against targets across Russia and Russian-occupied ⁠areas of Ukraine, including ⁠a warehouse owned by online ​retailer Ozon and an industrial facility, Russian officials said on Saturday. Ozon, Russia’s second-largest online retailer, said in a statement on Telegram that the attack had caused injuries. The attack is the first on Ozon after weeks of drone strikes on its larger rival Wildberries, which Ukraine has ​cast as part of a wider campaign against economic infrastructure underpinning the Russian war in Ukraine.

On the Crimean peninsula, at ​least two people were ​killed and 10 injured when a Ukrainian drone struck a city bus, said the ​Moscow-backed governor of Sevastopol, ‌Mikhail Razvozhayev. The peninsula was seized from Ukraine by Russia in 2014. In Luhansk region, an eastern Ukrainian province almost all of which is controlled by Russia, Moscow-installed governor Leonid Pasechnik said that two civilians, including a 16-year-old boy, had been killed and nine more were wounded.