Zelenskyy to urge Ukraine's allies for air defence systems after Russian missile attack on eve of NATO summit leaves 28 dead
Ukraine's president is due to meet with Donald Trump in Ankara on Wednesday
Ukraine's president will use a Nato summit in Turkey to plead allies to provide air defence systems to protect the country against escalating Russian strikes.
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President Volodymyr Zelenskyy's appeal comes after Russian missiles and drones hammered the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv on Monday, leaving 28 people dead.
That attack came days after this year's deadliest strike on Kyiv, which killed 31 people last Thursday.
Moscow's escalation of the air war comes in response to the success of Ukraine's long-range drone campaign on Russian oil industry targets that has triggered fuel shortages inside the country.
Ukraine's military was unable to down any of the 23 ballistic missiles fired by Russia on Monday, according to air force data, reflecting its increasing vulnerability to Moscow's strikes as stocks of its prized Patriot missile run out.
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On Monday, Zelenskyy said it was "simply absurd that, in the modern world, production has still not been scaled up to the level actually required to protect people from ballistic terror."
He said that Ukraine had the know-how to produce the weapons and if it received US licences to manufacture Patriot systems "our production would be sufficient not only to defend Ukraine but also to assist partners who need them".
He has pleaded for interceptors — the only weapon in Ukraine's arsenal that can shoot down ballistic projectiles, whose high velocity and steep flight path make them difficult to stop.
Earlier, the president called for "strong decisions" at the NATO summit in Turkey, which begins on Tuesday, to ensure Ukraine can defend itself. Ukrainian air force data shows air defences shot down just four of 49 ballistic missiles in July.
"As long as Patriot missiles sit in our allies' stockpiles, Russia is only encouraged to keep destroying residential buildings," Zelenskyy said on X. "The US and Europe have the power to stop this terror."
On Monday, US President Donald Trump said a resolution to the more than four-year-old war in Ukraine is "getting closer than people realise".
"This is one that I think we're getting much closer than people realize. And President Putin wants it to end. I will tell you that very strongly," Trump told reporters in the Oval Office.
"And President Zelenskyy actually wants it to end now. And we're going to be going to NATO, and we're going to be talking about it, and I think we're going to get it," he said. "I think we're going to get it ended. It's been a terrible situation."
Trump is scheduled to meet Zelenskyy on Wednesday on the sidelines of the NATO summit in Ankara and a US official said the idea of the talks was to make a renewed push to end the war.
The same official said Trump would likely follow up with Putin after talking to Zelenskiy.