French President Emmanuel Macron promised faster delivery of interceptor missiles and other defense equipment to Ukraine after speaking with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. The commitment comes as Russian ballistic attacks increase and civilian deaths reach their highest level since the opening months of the invasion.
France is working through a 10-country Anti-Missile Coalition that is developing a European anti-ballistic system at lower cost than the American Patriot. Paris also plans to advance deployment of the SAMP/T system and license Ukraine to manufacture interceptors, SCALP long-range cruise missiles and other munitions.
Zelenskyy said the two leaders agreed to accelerate the latest French equipment and missiles. Macron framed air defense as an immediate requirement for protecting Ukrainian skies, where ballistic weapons can reach targets within minutes and leave civilians little time to enter shelters.
Macron expressed horror over a strike on a shopping center in Kryvyi Rih that killed 16 people. A separate Russian missile attack near Kyiv killed two during a visit by German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul, while strikes in Odesa and Zaporizhzhia wounded civilians and damaged homes and grain silos.
Ukraine continued its own campaign against Russian and Russian-held targets. Drone attacks killed at least 10 people and hit an Ozon warehouse, an industrial facility, a bus in Crimea and locations in occupied Luhansk, extending Kyiv's effort to damage economic infrastructure connected to Moscow's war.
Vladimir Putin warned that attacks on Russian economic targets had opened a new cycle of retaliation against Ukraine's most sensitive sectors. Diplomacy remains stalled as Washington focuses on the Iran war, leaving European governments to carry more of the immediate burden for air defense and political pressure.
France and Britain will bring the Coalition of the Willing together to consider stronger measures against Moscow. The meeting links interceptor deliveries, European production capacity and pressure on Russia into a single response to an air war that is becoming faster, deadlier and harder for civilians to survive.
