Gun trucks against cruise missiles: Russia's 74-missile night exposes Ukraine's interceptor gap

Ukraine's mobile fire units are engaging cruise missiles for lack of Patriot interceptors. Hours later, the US Army locked in a seven-year PAC-3 buy worth up to $58.6 billion.

Russia hit Ukraine with 74 cruise and ballistic missiles and 284 attack drones on the night of July 29-30, Liga.net reported, citing Ukraine's air force. The salvo mixed 61 Kh-101 and Kalibr cruise missiles, nine Iskander-M, S-400 and KN-23 ballistic missiles, and four Zircon and Onyx anti-ship missiles. Defenders downed 54 cruise missiles, one Iskander and 265 drones. Weapons still struck 20 locations across ten regions.

Russian air strikes killed at least 13 people, Reuters reported. Six died in Radushne, a village outside Kryvyi Rih, where an Iskander-M launched from Russia's Voronezh region destroyed the home of a large family, city defense council head Oleksandr Vilkul said. Three of the dead were children. In Lviv, missiles damaged more than 20 residential buildings, a school and two kindergartens, the mayor's office said.

One missile kept going west. A projectile crossed roughly 90 kilometers into Poland and left a crater near Tarnawa-Kolonia in Lublin province, CNN reported. Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said all indications point to a Russian Kh-101 and that Warsaw stood ready to shoot it down had it flown on. Poland scrambled F-16s during the raid.