Russian strike sparks fire at Ukraine port; Zelenskyy seeks interceptors

Ukraine has reported an acute shortage of Patriot interceptors since the US went to war with Iran in February.Russian forces have struck Ukraine’s Izmail port in southern Odesa, setting off a fire, authorities said, a day after Kyiv pounded Russia’s Novorossiysk port.In a statement on the Telegram app early on Thursday, the Izmail Regional State Administration said Russian forces struck “port infrastructure”, causing damage and a fire.Recommended Stories list of 4 itemslist 1 of 4Zelenskyy says Ukraine has sent proposals to US to end war with Russialist 2 of 4Ukraine hits grain terminals at Russia’s Novorossiysk port, killing threelist 3 of 4Putin warns of tit-for-tat seizures of European vesselslist 4 of 4Is Russia’s economy cracking despite the Iran war windfall?end of listIt said emergency personnel were at the scene to extinguish it.Izmail, close to the Romanian border, is home to Ukraine’s largest Danube port, handling grain and other commodities.The attacks came as Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy told CNN that the country needs 5 percent of the United States’s Patriot interceptor missiles to get through the winter and 10 percent to destroy all of Russia’s ballistic projectiles.Russia has recently been firing barrages at the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, roughly once a week, killing civilians and damaging or destroying homes.In one attack, Ukraine failed to intercept any of the 28 ballistic missiles launched at it.Zelenskyy said Ukraine this year “had two and a half times less interceptors than we had in 2025”.“Russia has two times more ballistic missiles per month than they had before,” he said. “This year, I’m asking American partners to sell me 5 percent of missiles [that] they have in their stocks.”“If they sell us 5 percent, we will go through the winter and save people’s lives,” he added. “If they can sell us 10 percent, we will destroy all the Russians’ ballistic missiles. I have 1 percent.”Ukraine has reported an acute shortage of Patriot interceptors since the US and Israel launched the war on Iran in February, diverting supplies of the advanced systems.