Ukraine war briefing: Boost to Patriot missile supplies for Kyiv – other countries will have to wait

The US will send the latest Patriot missiles “rolling off the production line” to Ukraine instead of other countries that ordered them, the White House said on Thursday. “We’re going to reprioritise the deliveries of these exports,” said John Kirby, the national security council spokesman. It also applies to Nasams, another type of air defence missile. “Deliveries of these missiles to other countries that are currently in the queue will have to be delayed,” Kirby said, though deliveries to Taiwan and Israel would not be affected.

Asked about the timing of the Patriot decision, the Pentagon cited Russian attacks on Ukrainian infrastructure. “What we’re seeing is Russia once again trying to destroy Ukraine’s energy system and infrastructure ahead of winter, and so they urgently need … additional air defense capabilities,” said Maj Gen Pat Ryder. The Nato secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, on Thursday welcomed Romania’s decision to provide Ukraine with one of its two Patriot systems.

Ukrainian drones struck a Russian airbase in a second night of attacks on the Krasnodar region, reports online said. Russian emergency officials, writing on the Telegram messaging app, confirmed three municipalities of Krasnodar came under “massive attack”. The Russian journalist-run Astra social media channel reported that Yeysk, home to a military airfield, was hit by drones and there were fires afterwards, and posted eyewitness videos. Nasa satellite fire monitoring indicated fires or hotspots at the airbase. The Krasnodar region sits across the Kerch strait from Crimea.

Ukraine can use US-supplied weapons to hit Russian forces that are firing on Ukrainian troops anywhere across the border into Russia and not just in Russian territory near Ukraine’s Kharkiv region, the Pentagon said. “It’s self-defence and so it makes sense for them to be able to do that,” Ryder said.

The White House national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, told PBS this week that Ukraine could also use air-defence systems to fire at planes in Russian airspace preparing to fire at Ukraine. Last month, Joe Biden authorised Ukraine to launch US-supplied into Russia, but officials said at the time that it applied only to targets related to the Russian offensive on the Kharkiv region.

Volodymyr Zelenskiy has announced measures to protect Ukraine’s energy system, including protection for power plants under Russian fire and the development of alternative and renewable energy sources. Drone and missile strikes have knocked out half of generating capacity since March, according to official figures. Attacks overnight into Thursday hit four regions and cut power to more than 218,000 consumers, the energy ministry said.

Zelenskiy outlined plans to develop solar energy and energy storage facilities, “decentralised energy capacities”, and a schedule for critical infrastructure sites to come up with alternative energy sources. The work, he said, must be completed before winter and its increased energy demand.

South Korea will consider sending arms to Ukraine after Russia and North Korea signed a military pact, infuriating the South’s leadership. “It’s absurd that two parties with a history of launching wars of invasion – the Korean war and the war in Ukraine – are now vowing mutual military cooperation on the premise of a pre-emptive attack by the international community that will never happen,” said the office of Yoon Suk Yeol, South Korea’s president.

At the UN, the South Korean foreign minister, Cho Tae-yul, called it “deplorable” that Russia was now violating UN sanctions against North Korea that it had voted to put in place. South Korea is a growing arms exporter with a well-equipped military backed by the US, but usually does not supply weapons to countries actively engaged in conflict.

Speaking to reporters in Hanoi, where he travelled right after Pyongyang, Putin said on Thursday that supplying weapons to Ukraine would be “a very big mistake” on South Korea’s part and said he might do likewise for North Korea – a comment at odds with the fact that in the Ukraine war, it is Russia that has had to rely partly on the supply of weapons by Kim Jong-un’s regime.

Russians on Thursday reported problems with processing payments at major banks after a distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) cyber-attack, Russia’s Kommersant newspaper reported. The paper said the Telegram messaging app and major mobile phone networks were also affected. The IT Army of Ukraine, a volunteer hacker group, claimed responsibility.

A Ukrainian centre giving bionic and prosthetic limbs to soldiers has expanded its main hospital and intends to open others. Thousands of Ukrainian troops have lost limbs to bombing and mines since the full-scale invasion in 2022. Philipp Grushko, co-founder of the Superhumans Centre, said the new hospital wing opened in Lviv on Thursday would help meet demand for prosthetics and reconstructive surgery, fitting 70-75 prosthetics and conducting 30-45 reconstructive surgeries a month. A 4,000 sq metre facility opening soon in Odesa would include a prosthetics lab and rehab gym.

With Agence France-Presse, Reuters and Associated Press