The record of July 6 in Kyiv reads as follows. In the early hours, on the eve of the NATO summit, Russia fired 68 missiles and 351 drones at Ukraine [2]. At least 14 people were killed in the capital and more than 46 wounded there, with six more killed in surrounding districts - at least 20 dead in all [1][2]. It was the second mass-casualty strike on Kyiv in five days; the previous one killed about 30 people [2].
One line in the United Nations' account carries the whole case: 23 ballistic missiles targeted the capital, and none were shot down [1]. Not a hard night for air defense. Zero intercepts, because Ukraine has run short of the interceptors - Patriot rounds above all - that stop ballistic missiles [1]. A city's air defense is arithmetic: the missiles that are not intercepted arrive. On July 6, all of them arrived.
The shortage was not a surprise sprung on anyone. Days before the summit, President Zelensky said publicly that 'intelligence once again indicates that the Russians are preparing a new massive strike,' adding: 'This is typical of Putin: right after America's Independence Day and before the NATO summit in Ankara' [2]. He asked, again, for Patriot systems [1]. The strike came exactly as predicted. The interceptors had not.
The UN's judgment on what the missiles did is on the record. Secretary-General Guterres condemned the attacks on civilians as 'a clear violation of international humanitarian law' that 'must cease immediately,' calling for a full, immediate and unconditional ceasefire [1]. The UN's aid chief in Ukraine, Matthias Schmale, put it in plainer words: 'it is unbearable to witness the scale of human suffering' [1]. Across Ukraine, roughly 170 civilians are being killed or injured every day this month [2].
Set the two ledgers side by side and the week convicts itself. In Ankara: grievances aired, spending targets debated, a 70-billion-euro Ukraine pledge signed into the declaration. In Kyiv: 23 ballistic missiles, zero intercepted, at least 20 dead, four days after 30 dead. The pledge is real and the record credits it. The gap between a pledge and an interceptor in a launcher is measured in nights, and Kyiv's families are spending those nights in metro stations. The alliance's own summit week now contains the exhibit that shows what the shortage costs, per night, in names.
