COLUMN-Amid frontline advances, Ukraine’s cities face up to lack of air defence

As ​Ukraine's capital came under some of the heaviest direct bombardment of the war last week, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy ‌met a ​delegation of Japanese members of parliament and then German Chancellor Friedrich Merz. While the Japanese parliamentarians visited an underground drone workshop in the capital, Merz attended a memorial to slain Ukrainian service personnel as well as the scene of a Russian strike on the National Academy of Sciences in late September.

Before Merz headed back to Berlin, the leaders announced that, despite warnings from the Kremlin for foreign embassies to quit the Ukrainian capital for safety, neither Germany nor any other major nation had any plans ‌to do so. Still, with a lack of air defences now leaving Kyiv and other major cities wide open to attack, and summer's warmth coming to an end, Ukrainians themselves are now bracing for perhaps the toughest winter of the 4-1/2-year-old war.

"Protection against all of this is the number one priority for me and Ukraine," Zelenskiy said, saying that Russian reverses on the eastern front were pushing a furious Kremlin towards throwing ever greater resources into its aerial onslaught. UKRAINE MAKES SOME PROGRESS ON THE BATTLEFIELD

When it comes to fighting on the ground, Ukraine has indeed had a good few weeks. Last week saw social media footage of heavily shielded “Turtle” tanks – covered in extensive steel cages and shielding to protect themselves ‌from drone attack – advancing on a battlefield in eastern Ukraine under the protection of numerous Ukrainian aerial drones. Elsewhere on the front, in the eastern region of Donetsk, Ukrainian media reported their forces had steered several Soviet-era armoured personnel carriers by remote control as giant rolling bombs to break through heavily defended Russian positions. Other commanders ‌talked of drones airlifting smaller, unmanned ground vehicles forward for a robot-led assault.

The frontline continues to evolve: while some video footage from the front showed small groups of Ukrainian soldiers advancing in person, survival in open areas is now all but impossible. Speaking at the London Resilience Summit this week, veterans of several Ukrainian frontline units said both sides were now increasingly also digging tunnels and beginning to design new drones to do so. “It’s like something from 1916,” one said, comparing it to the tunnelling battles of the First World War.

On October 1, President Vladimir Putin said Russian forces had seized more than 1,300 sq km (500 sq miles) of territory in September. According to analysis conducted by the Washington-based Institute for the Study of War, however, Russia suffered a net territorial loss of 80 sq km (31 sq miles). Ukraine's counteroffensive – Operation Vivaldi – focusing on the ⁠Lyman region has ​yielded significant successes. Atlantic Council analyst David Kirichenko described it as reversing a full year's worth ⁠of Russian gains, significantly reducing the risk of further Russian breakthroughs against Ukraine’s eastern “fortress belt” in the coming months.

In addition to a continuing campaign of strikes on Russian refineries, which has triggered fuel shortages and reduced export revenue, Ukraine also continues to strike infrastructure, including, recently a datacentre owned by Internet giant Yandex. RUSSIAN BARRAGE LOOKS OMINOUS FOR WINTER

The bigger picture, though, looks harsher for Ukraine. An ever-growing volume of ⁠Russian ballistic missiles and a sophisticated new generation of Shahed drones are now penetrating Ukraine’s capital and essential infrastructure, raising the prospect of yet another, perhaps more severe, winter struggle for heat and power.

Ukraine says it was hit by 900 Shaheds last week alone, with targets including bridges across the river that divides Kyiv in two. Meanwhile European and other Western weapons systems are reaching Ukraine ​more slowly than had been hoped. Most critical are the air defence missiles that Ukraine has, in essence, run out of.

Talks with the US at NATO’s Ankara summit in July about providing Patriot missiles directly to Ukraine rather than from allies' stocks have yielded little. And while European nations are working ⁠together to produce the Ukrainian-designed Freya, there seems little prospect of it entering service before 2027. Meanwhile, Ukrainian officials said last month, Russia is now producing 140 ballistic missiles a month – many of which are launched almost immediately to inflict destruction while Ukraine has little answer to them.

Ukraine has received donations of F-16 fast jets from its Western allies, but says many are now back in western Europe for repairs, grounded by a lack ⁠of ​engine parts. On the other hand, it is having more success fending off Russia's new, jet-powered Shahed drones. Ihor Klymenko, secretary of Ukraine's National Security and Defence Council, said 82% of incoming jet drones had been downed on Wednesday night, although others, and other missiles, reached their targets.

NOT ALL WESTERN AID IS USEFUL TO UKRAINE While European defence tech executives continue to visit Kyiv with its bomb shelter hotels and elite life continuing under the bombardment, Ukraine was last month forced to cancel its “Brave One” arms fair in the western city of Lviv.

Western defence firms continue to seek out Ukrainian military partners to field-test their latest weaponry, among them drones with saws to sever the fibre-optic ⁠control cables many Russian drones use. Yet some Ukrainian personnel say the quality is extremely mixed.

“Sometimes there are a lot of buzzwords," said one operator. "We can be really overwhelmed with all the offers to test and validate technology – but that can be useless without the tactics.” High on the list of Ukraine's requirements, they said, ⁠is drone weaponry that can penetrate and destroy Russian bunkers under the front lines.

Russia, too, keeps innovating: ⁠UK Defence Intelligence last week described what it believed was the first engagement between Russian and Ukrainian drone vessels in the Black Sea. It is also signalling steady resolve.

Last week Russia concluded its massive “Centre” military drills along the Caspian Sea, a 47,000- personnel simulated seizure of hostile territory that included displays of Russia’s own new unmanned ground vehicles as well as its first autonomous tanks. Last weekend, at least five drones and missiles penetrated the airspace of Ukraine’s neighbour Moldova, described by both the Ukrainian and Moldovan ‌governments as a deliberate act.

Governments have also blamed Russia ‌for a steadily rising number of sabotage incidents in Europe - an allegation Moscow rejects. This winter that is likely to continue or worsen; few in Ukraine or Eastern Europe hold out ​much hope for US-brokered talks reaching any kind of breakthrough.

(Editing by Kevin Liffey)