RUSSIAN strikes on Kiev killed 11 and wounded 60 people in the early hours today, in what its Defence Ministry called retaliation for recent Ukrainian strikes on Russian energy infrastructure.

Moscow acknowledged it had carried out “a massive strike … hitting defence industry enterprises, fuel and energy facilities in the city of Kiev and the Kiev region, as well as military airfield infrastructure in the Dnepropetrovsk, Poltava, Cherkassy, Chernigov and Kiev regions.” Ukraine said the missiles hit residential buildings.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Ukrainian air defences are fairly effective at intercepting drones and cruise missiles, but a shortage of US-built Patriot interceptors means it is often incapable of downing ballistic missiles.

The United States had burned through roughly half its entire stock of Patriot and THAAD interceptors in the Iran war by the time of its April ceasefire, using them to shoot down retaliatory Iranian missiles fired at its Middle East bases and Israel.

It reportedly diverted weapons systems from as far afield as South Korea to cope with Iran’s stronger than expected military. Washington is now reluctant to offer more of its shrunken stock of such weaponry to Ukraine, though Mr Zelensky called on it and European governments to commit to doing so at this week’s Nato summit in Turkey.

Ukraine’s own strikes on Russia have caused increasing disruption in recent weeks, with officials in the Crimean peninsula reporting more blackouts caused by hits to energy infrastructure today. Russian President Vladimir Putin has admitted Ukrainian strikes on fuel refineries have caused serious shortages, despite Russia being one of the world’s largest oil and gas producers.