KYIV, Ukraine — European leaders joined President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Kyiv on Monday for celebrations marking the 35th anniversary of Ukraine’s Independence Day as Russia pressed on with its 4-year-old invasion of the country.
One of President Vladimir Putin’s key goals in starting a war with Russia’s neighbor in February 2022 was to place Kyiv in Moscow’s orbit. Ukrainian lawmakers voted on Aug. 24, 1991, to proclaim the country’s independence from Moscow, and a nationwide referendum later that year overwhelmingly approved it.
With no significant changes on the front line for months and no apparent progress after more than a year of U.S.-led peace efforts, both countries are locked in a spiral of escalating aerial attacks that are killing civilians and smashing infrastructure.
EU leaders rally around Ukraine
U.K. Prime Minister Andy Burnham, on his first overseas trip since taking office last month, joined almost a dozen other European leaders, as well as other dignitaries including European Council President Antonio Costa, in Kyiv on Monday.
“For Ukraine, independence is not an abstract idea. We defended it against all odds,” Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said on social media. “In times like these, nations learn how important it is to have allies by your side.”
Burnham was to co-chair a meeting of what has been dubbed the Coalition of the Willing - a group of countries helping Ukraine resist Russia’s onslaught, with the leaders of France and Germany expected to join online.
Zelenskyy said in a speech at Kyiv’s St. Sophia Square that the presence of European leaders reflected continental fears about Russia’s wider ambitions.
“We all understand that in this Russian war against us - against Ukraine - far more is being decided than the future of Ukraine and Eastern Europe,” Zelenskyy said, adding that foreign help was vital.
“No nation in a war like this could rely solely on its own weapons,” he said. “No nation could withstand attacks of such intensity without the world’s help.”
Ukraine eyes local production of French and British missile
The visiting leaders brought pledges of further military and financial support. Burnham is expected to announce that his government has agreed to allow defense company MBDA to release classified information relating to British components used in the SCALP long-range missile, according to his office. That would pave the way for France and Ukraine to advance plans for production of the weapon in Ukraine.
SCALP is the French version of the UK’s Storm Shadow missile, with both systems incorporating shared French and British technology.
“Ukraine has been Europe’s protector, not a drain on our security, but the front line of keeping Europe safe,” Burnham said in a speech, adding that Kyiv and its partners “must keep up the pressure on Moscow.”
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the Kremlin views the plan “extremely negatively.” He accused the U.K. of “taking part in this war” on Kyiv’s side.
Ukraine has leaned heavily on NATO countries for help fighting Russia’s bigger army, although relations with the United States have been cooler under President Donald Trump.
Russia, meanwhile, is getting help from North Korea and China.
Ukraine shows off its drones in a Kyiv parade
Ukraine’s swift development of innovative drone technology has enabled it to blunt Russia’s battlefield progress as well as hit targets deep inside Russia, as far as 2,000 kilometers (1,200 miles) from their border. The St. Sophia Square speeches were accompanied by a street parade of domestically produced weapons.
Both Russia and Ukraine are trying through long-range strikes to inflict economic pain, disrupt military supplies and erode public morale.
Ukraine’s long-range drones have repeatedly hit facilities in Russia’s vital oil industry, causing fuel shortages, and have also engaged in a campaign against Russia’s largest online retailer, Wildberries.
But foreign suppliers also have to take into account their own needs, weapon production levels and the depth of stockpiles.
As the air war has intensified, Ukraine’s stocks of U.S.-made Patriot interceptors to counter Russia’s ballistic missiles have run desperately low. Kyiv urgently needs more interceptors before winter, when Russia routinely bombards its power grid, but the demands of the Iran war and slow output of the sophisticated interceptors have left Ukraine short and vulnerable.
Ukrainian strikes kill 3 teenagers
Three teenagers were killed and six children were wounded in the southern Russian city of Krasnodar, Russia’s children’s rights ombudswoman Maria Lvova-Belova said, as Ukraine attacked several warehouses of Ozon, another online retailer, for the third straight day, according to officials and the company.
The company said a large fire raged at an Ozon logistics facility in the suburbs of Krasnodar following the overnight attack.
A drone also hit the grounds of an Ozon logistics center in the southern Russian region of Adygeya, regional Gov. Murat Kumpilov said, although the company said its Adygeya warehouse wasn’t damaged.
In all, four Ozon premises appeared to have been targeted.
Meanwhile, Ukraine’s General Staff said its forces struck the Russian state-owned Kamenetsky Combine defense company in the Rostov region, overnight, starting a fire. The plant produces fuel for rockets and missiles, it said.
Russia’s Defense Ministry said its air defenses overnight intercepted and destroyed 351 Ukrainian drones over eight Russian regions, the Crimean Peninsula and the Azov and the Black seas. Moscow illegally annexed Crimea in 2014.
The ministry also said that its forces overnight continued to strike Ukrainian ports and vessels delivering cargo for the armed forces.
Russia has also turned its sights on Ukrainian shopping malls, supermarkets and gas stations in recent months. Russian drones struck a shopping center in central Ukraine in a daytime attack Friday, killing 16 people and wounding 130, Ukrainian officials said.
Ukraine’s southern Odesa region came under a large-scale Russian missile and drone attack Monday, with food storage facilities and energy infrastructure among the targets, regional authorities reported.
Eighteen people, including two children, were injured in a Russian drone strike on Chernihiv in northern Ukraine, according to Ukraine’s Emergency Service.
It was not possible to independently verify each side’s reports.
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