Ukraine’s acting Defense Minister Yevhen Khmara’s first week in his new job at the top of his country’s war effort was dominated by meetings with major allies, with the topic of how to stop Russian ballistic missiles from blasting his country’s homes and businesses at the top of the agenda, official statements and Monday news reports said. News reports on talks from July 24 to 28 said the newly appointed Khmara also prioritized, in discussions with US, British, and German officials, expanding joint weapons production with Ukraine and sharing his country’s cutting-edge combat experience with leading NATO member states. The meetings went well, but Ukraine received no new offers of critically needed interceptor missiles, those reports said.JOIN US ON TELEGRAMFollow our coverage of the war on the @Kyivpost_official. Khmara, 39, is a Ukrainian special operations officer and intelligence veteran. He first saw combat as a commando fighting Russian and separatist troops invading eastern Ukraine in 2014. Known as a skilled and innovative special mission commander, Khmara was a lead planner for Ukraine’s June 2025 Operation Spiderweb that used remotely-controlled drones concealed in cargo trucks to swarm attack four Russian military airfields, damaging or destroying a claimed 41 Kremlin strategic bombers. He received the Defense Ministry portfolio on July 16. Khmara’s first major international meeting was with US Ambassador to NATO Matthew Whitaker in Kyiv on July 24. Talks centered on how Ukraine’s air defense might be strengthened, particularly by accelerating US deliveries of Patriot interceptor missiles, and possibly increasing US deliveries of US-made precision-guided munitions for long-range strikes, the Interfax news agency reported.