Russo-Ukrainian war, day 1597: Ukraine races to build its own missile shield as Russian ballistic strikes triple

Exclusives

Russia's war economy is starving its own strategic projects. Russia's top arms maker can't afford to build its own garbage incinerators.

Three F-16s and a Patriot battery teamed up to kill Russia's best fighter. The two systems each have a weakness against Russian jets. Working together—one seeing, the other shooting—they cancelled both out.

The Marta effect: Ukraine's tennis players are doing what its diplomats can't. The Ukrainian tennis star Marta Kostyuk is through to the semifinal at Wimbledon, the most prestigious tennis tournament in the world. But for Marta, and her fellow Ukrainian tennis players, this is about much more than tennis.

Swedish volunteers confronted Tesla over Russian aluminum at a Ukraine rally. Tesla still hasn't replied.. A Swedish tech entrepreneur has spent months trying to get Tesla to confirm whether its Berlin factory has stopped sourcing aluminum from Rusal. Tesla hasn't replied.

A $50k Ukrainian drone just hit a refinery 2,500 km inside Russia. The expensive missiles couldn't. With bigger wings and more fuel, Ukrainian drones can range deeper inside Russia to hit once unreachable targets.

A Kyiv court gagged reporters probing the anti-corruption chief's brother's 143 properties—no lawsuit required. No verdict, no trial—just a ban, and a lawsuit that may never come.

Military

Year ago, Russia fired 28 ballistic missiles in month at Ukraine. Now it's firing three times that. Ukraine's Ministry of Defense reports 89% interception of Russian air targets in June, but only 40% on ballistic missiles.

35 ships in four days: Ukraine's campaign against Russia's Azov Sea fuel run keeps widening. 12 more shadow fleet riverine tankers, a cargo ship, and a tug among the latest targets.

Russia wrapped its fuel tanks in protective nets—Ukraine's drones burned them regardless: two oil depots burned last night. The Tver depot's defenses, visible on satellite imagery, did not survive their first real test. SBU confirmed the strikes.

Intelligence and technology

Ukraine is building its own ballistic interceptor for $700,000 per shot. Eight countries may join project. Ukraine's Freya anti-ballistic project may add up to eight European partners, President Zelenskyy told journalists.

Ukraine wants robots doing 100% of frontline logistics. In June, they ran nearly 17,000 supply and evacuation runs. Ukraine's ground robots completed 16,676 logistics and evacuation missions in June, up 122% since the start of 2026.

Ukraine rewrote the Patriot playbook—but it's still running out of missiles. Single-shot intercepts. $30,000 decoys. Ukrainian crews training Gulf forces. Ukraine has become an air-defense innovator—and it is still losing the race against Russia's missiles.

Ukraine wants to make its own Patriots. Hard part isn't missile — it's Boeing part made in two places on Earth. The analysis details the specific technical, supply chain, and security constraints on Ukraine's Patriot production.

Russia's AI drone can't be jammed or detected—so Ukraine shot it down. No antenna. No operator. No emissions for a detector to catch. Ukraine's answer is no longer electronic warfare—it's a bullet.

International

Sports federations are quietly readmitting Russia, which killed 660 Ukrainian athletes. UEFA is about to become holdout. UEFA is ready to block Russian teams from returning to international football even after the IOC lifted Russia's disqualification.

EU "remains ambitious" on opening all Ukraine clusters as several capitals hold back. A senior diplomat said the bloc wants everything open "as soon as possible" but refused to name the member states raising objections.

Italy expels two Russian military attachés over espionage uncovered by Rome prosecutors. The expulsion follows this week's arrests of two former Italian intelligence officers suspected of selling secrets to Moscow.

EU officials call to strip the IOC of funding after it reinstates Russia's Olympic committee. Estonia will propose excluding the International Olympic Committee from EU programs, including Erasmus+, over the 7 July decision.

NATO jets over the Baltics get authority to shoot down "objects that pose a threat". Lithuania's president announced the change, saying the security environment around the three states is no longer peaceful.

Humanitarian and social impact

Russia attacks Ukraine's civilians at a scale few people realize. Kyiv reveals number at UN. Kyiv used a counterterrorism forum — not a war crimes tribunal to argue that what Russia is doing has a name the whole UN already agreed to condemn. Moscow took the floor three speakers later.

Political and legal developments

Russia laid Nord Stream to bypass Ukraine amid preparations for war. Four years after it exploded, Kyiv says it had nothing to do with blasts. Ukraine's Prosecutor General's Office says no facts show state involvement in the September 2022 Nord Stream pipeline sabotage.

CEO of one of Ukraine's biggest drone makers just got raided. He also owns outlet that exposed 25 non-combat deaths at military unit. No court order. Forty locations searched. One in four Ukrainian front-line drones at risk of disruption. And a timeline that Babel's editor says "leads to very bad conclusions."

Read our earlier daily review here.