UKRAINIAN President Volodymyr Zelensky went to Paris today to ask some 25 European leaders for help in developing measures to counter Russia’s ballistic missiles, which have been pummelling his country’s electricity grid.

European foreign ministers were also meeting separately in Brussels, where they were expected to discuss Ukraine’s needs.

“Our top priority is anti-ballistic defence,” Mr Zelensky said on social media after arriving in Paris.

He is keen to accelerate plans to joint develop anti-ballistic air defences with European countries before the winter, when Russia usually intensifies attacks to deny Ukrainians electricity, heat and water.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Moscow would follow the Paris meeting closely but dismissed its aspirations, saying that the so-called Coalition of the Willing, which brings together more than 30 countries supporting Ukraine, was “a coalition of warmongers.”

“They are driven by the profound delusion that it’s possible to inflict a strategic defeat on our country, so this is a coalition of the deluded, a coalition of those who incite the war,” he added.

In Ukraine, Unmanned Systems Forces commander Robert Brovdi claimed that 105 Russian vessels had been struck in the Sea of Azov, next to the Crimean Peninsula, since July 6.

The peninsula is enduring its worst fuel crisis since it was illegally annexed by Moscow in 2014. Crimea is a key rear base for Russian forces occupying parts of southern Ukraine.

Meanwhile, a drone launched during Russian overnight attacks on Ukraine’s Odessa region crashed and exploded in Moldova, the country’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said today, calling the incident “serious and unacceptable.”

Moscow regional Governor Andrei Vorobyov said three people had been killed and three injured when a Ukrainian drone attack hit the Pionersky settlement, just outside Istra in the western part of the Moscow region.