Kiev was the target of a fifth Russian drone strike overnight, but Ukrainian air defense systems managed to destroy all the weapons before they reached the city, the Ukrainian military said.

According to Serhiy Popko, the head of the military administration in the Ukrainian capital, no casualties or damage have been reported so far.

“These systematic attacks… with drones prove once again that the intruder is actively looking for an opportunity to attack Kiev,” Popko said.

“They are testing new tactics, looking for new approach routes to the capital and trying to expose the location of our air defenses,” he wrote on the Telegram messaging app.

Given Russia’s large-scale drone and missile attacks, which also targeted other Ukrainian regions, President Volodymyr Zelensky reiterated his call for long-range weapons to protect both civilians and troops.

“Our sufficient long-range capabilities should be a fair response to Russian terror. Anyone who supports us in this supports defense against terror,” Zelenskyy said.

Drone strikes are a key part of the conflict in Ukraine, with Russia often using Iranian-made Shahed “kamikaze” drones or domestically produced variants of the weapon.

Germany’s top diplomat Annalena Baerbock has expressed her support for the deployment of long-range missiles in Germany as Russia expands its arsenal under President Vladimir Putin.

“We must defend ourselves and our Baltic partners against this, with increased deterrence and additional long-range weapons,” Baerbock, a member of the Green Party, told Funke Media Group newspapers.

She said that while Germany wanted a different relationship with Russia, the country under Putin posed the greatest threat to Germany’s security and peace in Europe.

During the NATO summit in Washington from July 9 to 11, the White House and the German government announced that the US would temporarily redeploy missile systems in Germany that could reach Russia. These include nuclear-capable Tomahawk cruise missiles, SM-6 surface-to-air missiles and newly developed hypersonic missiles.

A 1988 treaty between the US and the former Soviet Union would have banned such missiles, but that pact was broken five years ago. The US last deployed missiles to Germany during the Cold War.

The German Green Party partly finds its origins in the peace movements of the late 20th century. However, its politicians have had to abandon a number of pacifist ideas due to recent world events.

tj/fb (AFP, AP, dpa, Reuters)