Ukraine, Russia escalate strikes during NATO summit as Zelenskyy urges more air defences

Of course here at the NATO summit, among the other discussions, the other war, the one that's been going on for now more than four years, that's the war in Ukraine. President Zelensky is here, he's trying to get more support for air defence systems for his country from NATO allies and particularly from the United States. And the quest for those I think underlined by what happened overnight, fresh attacks taking place in Kyiv, fresh bombardment by Russian forces. Let's discuss this further by going to our correspondent in Kyiv, Audrey McAlpine. Audrey, tell us exactly what happened overnight in Kyiv and how does it underline the point Zelensky's trying to make here at NATO? Yeah, James, the war still very much raging here in Ukraine, over a thousand kilometres from where you are here in Kyiv. Overnight attacks that have so far killed one woman, injured two here in the capital. That's the third attack on Kyiv in the past week, bringing the death toll just in the last few days alone of over 50 people. But that's not the only overnight attack. In fact, this morning a missile hit into an apartment building in Kharkiv, in the northeast city, which has so far killed two people, left 29 people injured. That's according to local authorities. Now, in this overnight attack, seven missiles launched by Russia, not a single one intercepted by Ukraine. So that'll certainly be underscoring Zelensky's message to his allies for more air defence. But we know also upcoming on the docket, Ukraine will be expecting a large military assistance package to be announced by NATO. So in tandem with that, one of the big things on Zelensky's agenda will be that air defence, which I'm sure he'll be discussing with the US president in a meeting later this afternoon. Now, clearly there's that need for US defence, but I think it's fair to say Zelensky sees himself in a stronger position than when he went to The Hague for the last NATO summit a year ago. Ukraine's drone capability is putting Russia on the back foot. Do you think among the Ukrainian leadership, given he's coming here with a slightly stronger hand, there's frustration that once again, as all this year, his important asks are being overshadowed by events in the Middle East? Well, that press conference earlier from US President Donald Trump, if that's any indication of the US's priorities, it's certainly not great for Ukraine. Very little mention of ending the Russia-Ukraine war. While that remains to be a priority, it doesn't seem at least at the top of the docket. And that's been Ukraine's, you know, plans for the last several weeks at least, is to try to turn US focus back to the war here. And you know, there could be a slight silver lining for Ukraine in this, these news of these US strikes in Iran. The only one being that it might help Zelensky make the case to the US president for Ukraine to domestically produce US Patriot missiles. Of course, you mentioned Ukraine's drone industry, it has a budding infrastructure set up for its defence industry, and he would like to use that to make these vital interceptor missiles. Of course, there is a shortage around the world of these due to ongoing conflicts. So President Zelensky raised that point at the G7, he'll be likely raising that point again here this afternoon. Well thank you very much Audrey, worth saying that at the G7 President Trump seemed in a very good mood, he certainly, when he gave those Iran comments earlier on, seemed pretty angry. Let's go to Moscow, Yulia Shapovalova is there, she's our Moscow correspondent. Yulia, tell me what are the Russian authorities saying about these latest attacks on Kiev and are they deliberately timed because of the events going on behind me? Well the Russian military indeed reported that they had carried out drone strikes and ballistic missile attacks on Ukraine last night. The Russian Ministry of Defence actually always called their strikes retaliatory attacks against quote Kiev terrorist attacks on Russia's civilian infrastructure. At the same time, according to the Russian Defence Ministry, the country's air defence forces destroyed 415 Ukrainian drones over various Russian regions overnight. An airbase was attacked in the city of Borisoglebsk in central Russia, in Saratov and Nizhny Komsk. Ukrainian drones attacked oil refineries once again in the city of Saratov, it's a city upon the Volga river in central Russia. One person has died and several other people have been injured in Nizhny Komsk, in Tatarstan. A massive drone attack also took place and restrictions are still in place at the city's airport. Two tankers were damaged in the Taganrog bay in the south of the country, two people were injured there. According to the governor of that region, the tankers were empty, therefore no oil spill was recorded. And also, massive drone attacks continue to target Russia's oil refineries, which obviously add some problems to the current fuel crisis in the country. Yulia, throughout this war, for more than four years, I think it's been pretty clear what the NATO leadership and the Secretary General Mark Rutte thinks, and most of the late NATO allies, but Donald Trump has changed his position a lot. So what do you think President Putin and those in the Moscow leadership want to hear from President Trump at the end of this NATO summit when he gives his final news conference? Well, they definitely want Donald Trump to return to the negotiating process between Russia and Ukraine. Russia has bogged down in this conflict and it seems like it can't get out of it alone. It definitely needs some sort of helping hand and they really hope that Donald Trump will be able to mediate, to continue mediating in this conflict. So according to the Russian officials, Europe is ramping up their defence budgets and their military industrial production. Russia hears about scenarios of a possible direct military clash and actually they say that Europe is directly involved in the Ukrainian conflict by supporting Ukraine, by funding their military complex. The Russian side believes that all these steps do not contribute to peace and Western actions are designed to support, to further support the conflict in Ukraine. So at the moment Russian officials are actually pretty pessimistic about Europe and about European NATO members because they think that their increased budgets continue and will inevitably aggravate the strategic situation in Europe and in Russia and Ukraine. Yulia in Moscow, thank you very much. Well, there's been some talk, we expect further talk on Ukraine here at the NATO summit and one of those who's been talking about it is the host of this meeting, Turkey's President, President Erdogan. He said his position was very closely aligned with that of the US. Dear friends, in the Ukraine war, Trump has expressed his own vision regarding peace over there. Ukraine needs so many urgent things. We support Ukraine in its demands and requests and there is military support as well. Also here in Ankara to discuss this further is Ed Arnold, he's a Senior Associate Fellow at RUSI, the London Defence Think Tank. Ed, thank you for joining us for Al Jazeera today. Zelensky is here with one thing he really wants, more in terms of missile defence. Do you think he's going to get it? Yes, I think he's going to get it and the change between this summit and the previous summits is the issue of Ukrainian membership of NATO is not on the cards and it's not really discussed. This is about hard military capabilities to keep Ukraine in the fight and there are two severe issues. The first that you've already covered is air defence and it's about interceptor missiles for the air defence systems that have already been provided but also long range strikes so they can try and strike the bombers and the other targets within Russia before they are actually able to strike and these hits on Ukraine and Kiev in the last couple of weeks just underlie how serious that situation is for Ukraine at the moment. Ed, we hear from a lot of NATO leaders, European NATO leaders and Canada for that matter, that there is a new tide that's been turned in Ukraine, that Zelensky is now in a much more powerful position and we certainly know that there are strikes going to Moscow, that life in Crimea is being made very, very hard indeed. But with regard to that narrative, do you think the US and Europe are on the same page? Well certainly Ukraine is in a stronger position, they've found a way to not just have sort of deal with Russia in the close fight in the trenches, they're also increasing long range strike but actually critically what they've managed to do is actually that middle ground so really going after Russia's logistics, their ability to fight and they're having a real success at the moment. The challenge for Ukraine is how to use that success, the Russians adapt very quickly so when the Russians start to adapt to Ukrainian advantage it no longer becomes an advantage so right now this is the time to press that and try and get Putin again to the negotiating table, not that it would end the war but it would end this current phase of the war and sort of then allow the Ukrainians to rearm, re-equip, restock their interceptor missiles for what is assumed to happen later in the line, that the Russians will continue their offensive, they've been continuing this offensive for four years and actually since 2014 it's still the intent of President Putin to subjugate Ukraine. And on the actual front line when it comes to taking territory there is pretty much stalemate is there not? Yes there's a stalemate at the moment so you don't see any manoeuvre on the front line, changing controls of maps but what you see critically from the Ukrainians is firstly they were fighting the Russians and making sure that there were favourable casualty ratios so that meant that they were killing more Russians than Russians were killing Ukrainians but that's ultimately not sustainable, Ukrainian tactics are now actually to kill more Russians than they can recruit and that actually hampers Russia's ability to not only potentially take further territory but continue this war politically and actually the Ukrainians are starting to but this war is not going to be won over a square kilometre here and there on the front line this now has expanded much more into again the attritional aspect of this war is certainly on long range strike as well as what's happening in the trenches in the front line. Ed can I take a step back from Ukraine, these NATO summits they seem to be happening every year in recent years in history, they didn't used to happen every year. President Trump says he doesn't like them very much, do you think they are counterproductive given that President Trump has difficult relations with NATO members, they've just become a moment where there could be a destructive moment and I ask you this because there was some talk that next year's summit in Albania might get called off but I've just heard from a senior NATO official no, in the draft of the final communique they're looking at right now it says there'll be another summit next year. Yes well decision on that summit I mean it may come into the communique that may change you know things change a lot within sort of the NATO environment at the moment but I think the initial summits used to be on an ad hoc basis then they started to become more routine because they needed to really sort of force decisions you know and this was prior to when Russia invaded Ukraine in 22 so actually the security environment, the Russia threat is actually the driving force for leaders to meet more often and then at foreign minister and defence minister level as well. So I think there's probably going to move away from these annual summits whether the plan for next year is already baked in enough that they have to go for that but the sort of the rhythm of all of these large meetings does need to be looked at from a NATO perspective.