Femi Ashekun/
Russian forces on Sunday carried out a large-scale missile and drone strike on Kyiv and other parts of Ukraine that exposed growing gaps in the country’s layered air defences, according to Ukrainian and Western officials.
Officials say recent software and guidance changes to missiles such as modified Iskander-M and Kinzhal types have allowed them to perform last-second dives and erratic terminal manoeuvres that can defeat US-supplied Patriot interceptors.
Those changes have coincided with a sharp fall in Ukraine’s interception rates in recent weeks, the FT reports, with engagement success against certain salvos dropping from roughly 37% in August to single digits in September, a trend Kyiv describes as alarming as it faces shortages of interceptors and delays in resupply.
Sunday’s bombardment was one of the largest in recent months. Reuters, citing Ukrainian air-defence authorities and official briefings, reported that the assault involved hundreds of unmanned aerial vehicles and dozens of missiles; Kyiv said the bulk of the incoming weapons were intercepted but that strikes still caused significant damage and casualties.
Reuters put the scale of a recent comparable attack at hundreds of drones and dozens of missiles and said several people were killed and many more injured across multiple regions.
In Kyiv the strikes damaged residential blocks, factories, a cardiology clinic and other civilian infrastructure, leaving streets littered with wrecked cars and collapsed masonry.
Photographs from the scene show extensive destruction and emergency crews working amid rubble as residents try to account for missing family members.
Ukrainian officials and defence experts told the FT that the Russian approach appears to rely increasingly on altering missile flight profiles and guidance in software, changes that can be rolled out fast and do not require large hardware modifications, making it difficult for defenders whose software and interceptor algorithms were trained on older, more predictable trajectories.
That dynamic, they say, forces Ukraine to expend interceptors at higher rates and complicates efforts by Western suppliers to keep pace.
Kyiv’s leaders repeated appeals for more and faster deliveries of air-defence systems and interceptors from Western partners, warning that the thinning of its defensive layers, from equipment losses and personnel strains, makes infrastructure and population centres more vulnerable ahead of the winter months.
Western officials have acknowledged the problem but say adapting and replenishing complex air-defence networks takes time.
What this means on the ground is painfully clear: even where interceptors succeed in engaging incoming weapons, a small number that evade interception can still inflict heavy damage when they hit crowded urban or industrial targets.
Ukrainian authorities say that reiterates the need for both additional systems and new tactics, including better integration of sensors, faster information sharing with manufacturers, and diversified layers of defence, to blunt Russia’s evolving missile campaign.
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