The first weapons supplied to Ukraine under a programme funded by its European allies will include missiles for Patriot air defence systems and Himars rocket launchers, Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Wednesday. The two initial batches are worth US$500m each. Ukraine has secured over $2bn in financing via what is called the Prioritised Ukraine Requirements List, or Purl. Ukraine’s president said he expected the total committed funds to reach $3.5bn in October. Patrick Turner, Nato’s senior representative in Ukraine, said: “Four packages [under Purl] have already been funded and equipment is already flowing.”
Russia closed its Volgograd airport and put oil refineries on alert for a Ukrainian drone attack early on Thursday morning. Between 10 and 15 explosions were heard and flashes were seen in the sky as air defence systems opened fire, said the Russian Telegram channel Shot.
It was likely a missile fired at Russian drones from a Polish plane that hit a house, a government minister said on Wednesday, when UAVs swarmed into Poland in an unprecedented violation of Nato airspace. Authorities initially said one of the 21 Russian drones hit the house on the night of 9-10 September. The minister, Tomasz Siemoniak, said on Wednesday: “Everything indicates that it was a missile fired by our plane, defending Poland, defending the fatherland, defending our citizens.” Poland’s PM, Donald Tusk, promised an investigation of how it happened but all responsibility for the damage still lay with Russia, which he said was responsible for orchestrating a provocation using drones.
