Russian Missile Strikes Kill Nine in Kyiv as Trump Administration Withholds Patriot Approval

Russian ballistic missile strikes on Kyiv killed at least nine people Saturday, with dozens more injured across multiple districts, according to BBC News reporting. More than 10 explosions were reported in the capital. At least seven people died in a single strike in the Darnytskyi district, where 14 were injured including two children. In Solomyanskyi district, two people died and eight were injured as a five-storey residential building was partially destroyed. A missile landed near the Lithuanian embassy, breaking windows and scattering debris. Fires broke out across Kyiv and power cuts were reported in some areas.

The strikes came two days after a suspected Russian cruise missile landed in Poland during a widespread Russian attack on Ukraine that killed at least eight people, including six members of one family. BBC News reporting confirms that Moscow has been escalating deadly ballistic missile attacks on Kyiv recently, and that Ukraine has run low on supplies of Patriot interceptors, which remain the only weapon in its arsenal capable of downing ballistic missiles.

President Volodymyr Zelensky met President Donald Trump in Washington DC earlier in the week to urge the US to grant Ukraine a license to produce Patriot interceptor missiles. However, Trump said Friday at a cabinet meeting at Camp David that the US had not agreed to Ukraine building the weapons and that talks remained ongoing. Trump stated: "I don't think this would ever happen, but, you know, those people that you give that technology, they can someday turn on you," according to BBC News. He said the US had to be "very careful about letting somebody build them" and called it "a big step." Trump's caution comes weeks after he offered to give Ukraine the right to produce the missiles.

Zelensky posted on X Friday that he had a "good" phone call with US Vice President JD Vance following his meeting with Trump. Zelensky wrote: "As Russia's air attacks on our country continue unabated, air defence specifically Patriot interceptors against ballistic missiles remains a top priority," per BBC News reporting.

Separately on Saturday, Ukrainian drones sank the sanctioned 100,000-tonne capacity container ship Yanina in the Black Sea, 130 miles from Novorossiysk, according to BBC News. Moscow confirmed all 17 crew members were rescued. Rosatom CEO Alexey Likhachev said the crew were in "satisfactory" condition and characterized the attack as "piracy and robbery," per BBC News. Rosatom said the ship had been transporting civilian goods including frozen food and construction materials.

Ukraine has escalated its retaliatory strikes in recent months, including attacks on several retail warehouses belonging to Russia's largest online retailer, Wildberries. Kyiv says it is targeting logistics hubs used by Russians to buy military equipment and disrupting supplies to the Russian army. Ukraine has targeted Russian-flagged ships in the Black Sea since Russia's full-scale invasion in 2022, according to BBC News reporting.