US President Joe Biden, commenting on Russia’s missile strike on Ukraine on 26 August, said that Ukraine would have priority over other countries in the supply of US air defence systems. The statement was published on the White House website, Komersant ukrainskyi
reports
“I strongly condemn Russia’s continued war against Ukraine and its efforts to plunge the Ukrainian people into darkness. Let me be clear: Russia will never succeed in Ukraine, and the spirit of the Ukrainian people will never be broken,” Biden said.
According to him, the United States will continue to lead a coalition of more than 50 countries in support of Ukraine.
“As I announced at the NATO summit in July, the United States and our allies have provided Ukraine with equipment for five additional strategic air defence systems, and I have reprioritised US air defence exports to be sent to Ukraine first,” Biden said.
He added that the United States is also sending more energy equipment to Ukraine to repair its systems and strengthen the resilience of the Ukrainian energy grid.
Biden stressed that Russia will never succeed in Ukraine, and the United States will support the Ukrainian people for as long as necessary.
Missile attack on Ukraine on 26 August: what we know
Another massive, combined missile and drone strike on Ukraine began around 3:00 a.m. with an attack by numerous attack drones. Up to a dozen of these drones (such as the Shahed) approached Kyiv from different directions. However, the air defence forces and means destroyed all the enemy drones on the outskirts of the city.
And at around 5:00, the Ukrainian Air Force reported that the enemy had taken 11 Tu-95MS strategic bombers into the sky. The Ukrainian Navy recorded the launch of 4 Kalibr missile carriers, with a total volley of up to 28 missiles. Subsequently, the enemy took to the skies 6 Tu-22M3 strategic bombers, followed by 3 MiG-31Ks with Kinzhal missiles. This arsenal was supplemented by ballistic missile launches from Crimea and the western regions of Russia.
According to preliminary information, the main target of the complex, combined attack of all these numerous cruise, ballistic, aerial ballistic missiles and attack drones was infrastructure.
The Russian Armed Forces used
- x-101/55 cruise missiles from 6 Tu-95s (Saratov region and the Caspian region);
- zm14 Kalibr cruise missiles from the Black Sea;
- allegedly guided aircraft missiles of various types from the Azov Sea, Sumy and Belgorod regions;
- x-22 supersonic cruise missiles from 6 Tu-22m3 aircraft from the territory of Kursk region of the Russian Federation;
- 9m723 Iskander-M/KN-23 ballistic missiles;
- x-47m2 supersonic ballistic missiles of the Kinzhal complex from the Lipetsk region of the Russian Federation;
- UAVs of the Shahed and Gerbera types.
Lutsk, Stryi, Ternopil, Zhytomyr, Khmelnytskyi, Rivne, Ivano-Frankivsk, Vinnytsia, Kyiv, Dnipro, Poltava, Kharkiv, Kryvyi Rih, Odesa, Zaporizhzhia and other settlements were under attack