Firefighters put out a fire after Russian missiles hit a warehouse in Kyiv, Ukraine, Aug. 5.Dan Bashakov/The Associated Press
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky denounced Russia’s latest deadly attacks on Kyiv on Saturday as he visited Serbia, one of the few European countries that has maintained friendly relations with Moscow throughout its invasion of Ukraine.
Four people, including a child, were killed in the overnight strikes on Kyiv and the surrounding region. Ukrainian forces hit Russian oil facilities.
Zelensky arrived in Belgrade on Friday for his first official visit to Serbia.
Speaking at a news conference in Belgrade with Zelensky, Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic described Ukraine as a “friendly nation” and said he was honoured to welcome the Ukrainian leader – the first visit by a Ukrainian president in eight years.
The two leaders discussed their countries’ efforts toward joining the European Union, bilateral ties and ways to expand co-operation.
Kyiv’s residents face regular drone and missile barrages that Ukraine’s depleted air defences are struggling to counter amid Moscow’s 4-year-old full-scale invasion, while repeated Ukrainian strikes on oil facilities have caused fuel shortages and rattled Russians.
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Vucic, who has maintained close ties with Moscow and refused to sanction Russia over the invasion – drawing pressure from the EU to change course – reiterated that Serbia respects Ukraine’s territorial integrity and said that position would not change.
“The situation in Ukraine is difficult,” Zelensky said at the press conference. “There was another missile strike last night – ballistic missiles targeting our infrastructure. There were also attack drones.”
Zelensky said that deliveries of Patriot air defence interceptors – the sole air defence weapon in Ukraine’s arsenal able to shoot down ballistic missiles – have slowed compared with a year ago.
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“There are fewer of these missiles in 2026. In 2025 there were more, I’ll tell you honestly, in terms of monthly supplies,” he said.
Zelensky said Washington has agreed to let Ukraine manufacture its own Patriot air defence interceptors, but that they are “stuck dealing with paperwork.”
“The process for some of these licenses is also taking a long time,” he said.
Boy killed with grandparents in Kyiv region
The talks in Belgrade came after multiple Russian drones destroyed the home of a family in the Brovary district, northeast of Kyiv, killing a 3-year-old child and his grandparents, local officials said.
Three other members of the same family and a neighbour who came to their aid were hospitalized, local authorities said. The attack reduced the house to rubble and wrecked outbuildings and cars.
Zelensky said at least one other person died in a “strike involving six ballistic missiles against civilian infrastructure” in the capital.
In its daily report, Ukraine’s air force said it had downed or intercepted 135 of 151 drones launched by Russia overnight. The attack also involved six ballistic missiles and other guided missiles.
Russia has relentlessly pounded civilian areas of Ukraine, even though Moscow insists its forces target only military facilities.
Ukraine’s air defences shot down around 5,300 drones and missiles last month, Ukraine’s defence ministry said Friday, just under 60 per cent of the around 9,000 attack drones and missiles Russia fired in the same period.
Moscow is exploiting Ukraine’s critical shortage of interceptors for the U.S.-made Patriot systems, the sole air defence weapon in its arsenal able to shoot down ballistic missiles.
Zelensky has pleaded with other countries, especially the U.S., to send more of the ammunition made scarcer by the Iran war. Failing that, he wants to make Patriot ammunition in Ukraine or win permission from Elon Musk to use his Starlink satellite communications system to guide strikes inside Russia that can hit its missile launchers.
Following the latest attacks, Zelensky appealed on X for more sanctions to “prevent the production of these ballistic missiles,” along with “anti-ballistic capabilities” and “interceptor missiles.”
Ukraine strikes Russian oil facilities
In Russia, six people were wounded when a fire broke out at the Ilsky Oil Refinery, in the southern Krasnodar region, due to debris from a falling drone, local officials said.
Ukraine’s General Staff said Ukrainian forces struck the refinery in Krasnodar, along with the Syzran Oil Refinery in the Samara region, more than 800 kilometres inside Russia.
Vyacheslav Fedorishchev, governor of Russia’s Samara region, said drones hit an “industrial enterprise,” but he did not mention the refinery.
Ukraine’s almost daily long-range drone and missile strikes using domestically developed weapons have battered Russian oil facilities for months. The operation has brought a fuel crisis that is embarrassing the Kremlin.