KYIV: France on Saturday promised to deliver new interceptor missiles to Ukraine amid a surge in Russian strikes that have pushed civilian deaths in the four-and-a-half-year war to their highest since the first months of Moscow’s invasion.

At least 13 people were killed in strikes overnight and through Saturday — seven in Ukraine, four in Russia and two in Russia-annexed Crimea.

The latest deadly attacks come as rescuers in the eastern Ukrainian city of Kryvyi Rig were sifting through the rubble of a part-destroyed shopping centre, where 16 were killed a day earlier in a Russian drone attack.

Ukraine’s allies in the Coalition of the Willing — an initiative led by France and Britain — will meet on Monday to look at how to ramp up pressure on Moscow to halt its invasion.

Diplomacy has stalled with the United States, which had brokered several rounds of direct talks between Kyiv and Moscow, but which is now distracted by its war on Iran and frustrated the conflict has not been as easy to solve as President Donald Trump once touted.

Announcing the new missile interceptors, French President Emmanuel Macron wrote on X: “It is crucial to provide Ukraine with all the necessary means to defend its skies and thwart this aggression.” Russia has pounded Ukraine — the capital Kyiv especially — with ballistic missile attacks in recent months.

The hard-to-intercept super-fast weapons reach their target within minutes, making it virtually impossible for locals in Kyiv to reach an underground shelter in time. Among the deadly attacks on Saturday was a Ukrainian drone strike on a house in southern Russia, killing two children and wounding their parents, the head of the Krasnodar region said.

“This morning, civilian infrastructure and residential buildings in the Yeysk district came under a drone attack,” Governor Veniamin Kondratyev said.

Published in Dawn, August 23rd, 2026