Zelensky seeks more European air defence support for Ukraine at Paris meeting

Volodymyr Zelensky has asked European leaders for help against Russia’s ballistic missiles, which have pounded Ukraine’s power grid in the more than four years since Moscow launched its full-scale invasion.

“Our top priority is anti-ballistic defence,” the Ukrainian president said on social media after arriving in Paris.

His visit came as as European foreign ministers were meeting separately in Brussels to discuss Ukraine’s needs and Russia’s threats to the continent.

Mr Zelensky is keen to accelerate plans for jointly developing with European countries anti-ballistic air defences before the winter, when Russia usually intensifies its attacks to deny Ukrainians electricity, heat and water.

Ukrainian officials will present a proposed anti-ballistic programme and meet government leaders, national security advisers and defence companies which might take part, Mr Zelensky said.

US President Donald Trump’s pledge last week to give Ukraine a licence to produce Patriot air defence systems could mark a major breakthrough for Kyiv, but experts and Ukrainian officials warn that turning the idea into real weapons would probably take years.

Mr Zelensky said he would also meet French President Emmanuel Macron, while the Ukrainian military will take part in the annual parade marking Bastille Day, France’s national holiday.

Kyiv and its European backers want to press home Ukraine’s recent successes and compel Russian President Vladimir Putin to negotiate an end to the fighting, although Moscow has shown no willingness to compromise despite a peace effort by the Trump administration.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Moscow will closely follow the Paris meeting but dismissed its aspirations.

“This is a coalition of warmongers,” he said. “They are driven by the profound delusion that it’s possible to inflict a strategic defeat on our country, so this is a coalition of the deluded, a coalition of those who incite the war.”

Ukraine’s advances in drone technology have given it an edge in recent months, analysts and western officials say. Its strikes on supply routes behind the front line have robbed the Russian army of momentum on the battlefield and made its progress slow and costly, they say.

Ukrainian forces struck 105 Russian vessels in the Sea of Azov next to the Crimean Peninsula between July 6 and 13, said Robert Brovdi, commander of Ukraine’s Unmanned Systems Forces.

The vessels included tankers, dry cargo ships, a ferry and tugboats, Mr Brovdi said.

The campaign is part of a broader Ukrainian effort to isolate the Crimean peninsula, which is enduring its worst fuel crisis since it was illegally annexed by Moscow in 2014, and disrupt Russian logistics. Crimea is a key rear base for Russian forces occupying parts of southern Ukraine.

The Paris meeting of the so-called Coalition of the Willing, which brings together more than 30 countries supporting Ukraine, was expected to include about 25 heads of state and government.

The high number appeared to be a demonstration of long-term commitment to Ukraine and a warning to Russia, as Moscow tests Europe’s resilience.

French foreign minister Jean-Noel Barrot said he would summon the Russian ambassador to France and impose sanctions against Russian hackers. He told BFMTV-RMC the issue is about “a vast cyber campaign aimed at sabotage and espionage, carried out by Russia in about 10 European countries”.

Ukraine’s neighbours have also felt the war’s impact.

In the latest incident, a drone launched during Russian overnight attacks on Ukraine’s Odesa region crashed and exploded on Moldova’s territory, Moldova’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said on Monday. It said the incident was “serious and unacceptable”.

Ukraine has aimed at targets deep inside Russia with its domestically developed long-range drones and missiles, matching and sometimes exceeding the number used in relentless Russian aerial attacks.

Russian air defences downed 350 Ukrainian drones heading towards Moscow since late Sunday, including 50 near the capital, Moscow mayor Sergei Sobyanin said.

Moscow regional governor Andrei Vorobyov said 81 Ukrainian drones were downed overnight.

He said three people were killed and three injured by the Ukrainian attack in the Pionersky settlement just outside Istra in the western part of the Moscow region.

The Ukrainian air force said Russia launched 134 long-range strike drones and three guided aviation missiles at Ukraine.

In the southern city of Zaporizhzhia, more than 70 people were admitted to hospital after a series of Russian strikes damaged 11 apartment blocks, according to military administration head Ivan Fedorov.

Russia’s Federal Security Service said it had thwarted a Ukrainian plan for a drone attack on the Ukrainka air base in the far eastern Amur region, and the Shagol air base in the Chelyabinsk region in the southern Urals.

The agency said small drones were smuggled into Russia’s western Bryansk region using air balloons and bigger transport drones, and then taken by car close to the air bases by Ukrainian agents.

The agency said it had arrested Ukrainian agents and their accomplices and seized 24 drones. It said the purported plot was part of a series of planned drone strikes on military infrastructure “unprecedented in its scale and the level of threat”.

A Ukrainian covert operation just over a year ago, codenamed Operation Spiderweb, destroyed or damaged nearly a third of Moscow’s strategic bomber fleet with drones carried secretly into Russian territory, according to Ukrainian officials.