Ukraine war latest: 'Make them yourself': Trump gives Zelensky green light to produce Patriot missiles

Key developments on July 8:

• 'Make them yourself': Trump gives Zelensky green light to produce Patriot missiles
• Russian ballistic missiles, drones rock Kyiv, fires break out, 4 killed
• Zaluzhnyi: Assuming Russia has lost the war is a 'dangerous misreading'
• 'Another Russian air terrorist eliminated' — Ukraine downs Su-35

U.S. President Donald Trump said on July 8 that he would grant Ukraine its longstanding request to produce U.S.-made Patriot missiles, Ukraine's only Western-supplied tool capable of stopping Russian ballistic missile attacks

Patriot missiles have played a key role in Ukraine's defenses when Kyiv has been able to procure them in sufficient quantities.

But in a world where Ukraine needs the missiles to protect against Russia and Middle Eastern countries need them to defend against Iran, U.S. production has failed to scale up to meet that demand.

Moscow has taken advantage of that situation, repeatedly launching ballistic missile attacks against civilians in Kyiv.

"We are gonna give a license to you to make Patriots... This way you can't complain that we are not giving you enough," Trump said during a press conference at the NATO Summit in Turkey.

"Make them yourself," he added.

While Trump later expressed confidence that Ukraine could produce the missiles quickly, he also said he had not coordinated with the manufacturer, Lockheed Martin, ahead of the announcement.

Russian ballistic missiles, drones rock Kyiv, fires break out, 4 killed

Four people were killed and 16 others injured after Russia launched drones and ballistic missiles against Kyiv on July 8.

The missile attack that began shortly after midnight was the third ballistic strike on the capital in just six days. Russian Shahed-type drones targeted Kyiv throughout the following day.

Ukraine's Air Force warned of the threat of Russian ballistic missiles heading toward the capital in the early hours of the morning as local officials urged residents to remain in shelters.

Kyiv Independent journalists in the capital heard explosions shortly before air raid alerts were activated.

Tymur Tkachenko, the head of the city's military administration, reported that as a result of the missile strikes on Kyiv, one woman was killed, while two people were injured.

Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said a missile strike sparked a fire at warehouse facilities in the city's Desnianskyi district, while a separate fire broke out in a non-residential building in the Sviatoshynskyi district.

"In the Sviatoshynskyi district, an administrative building and storage facilities caught fire. Two people were injured, one of whom was hospitalized," the State Emergency Service reported.

At another location in the district, a fire broke out at a garage complex. Trams and an administrative building were damaged.

As of 08:30 a.m. local time, emergency services were continuing to tackle fires at two locations in the Sviatoshyn and Desnianskyi districts, according to the State Emergency Service.

Russian drones continued to attack Kyiv throughout the day, and air-raid sirens sounded several times in the morning, with multiple drones flying over the city and explosions reported.

Three people were killed as a result of a drone crash in the Desnianskyi district of Kyiv at around 12 p.m., Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said.

According to Klitschko, a drone crashed into a three-story non-residential building next to a market, and near a gas distribution station.

At 5:29 p.m. local time, a drone struck a 25-story residential building on the 16th floor in the Desnianskyi district, Klitschko added. ‌‌Emergency services were heading to the scene.

Overall, 14 people, including a 17-year-old boy, were injured in Russian daytime drone attacks.

Zaluzhnyi: Assuming Russia has lost the war is a 'dangerous misreading'

"Do not assume Russia has lost the war," Ukraine's ambassador to the United Kingdom and former Commander-in-Chief Valerii Zaluzhnyi warned in an opinion piece published in The Telegraph on July 8.

Zaluzhnyi pointed to a trend of Western analysts who assumed that "Russia has effectively lost the war," citing Ukraine's increasingly successful deep-strike campaign against the Russian oil industry and its ongoing "middle-strike" campaign to target Russian logistics.

"That is a dangerous misreading of the war," Zaluzhnyi said, arguing that analysts who focus on Ukraine's individual tactical and operational victories — battlefield gains and strikes inside Russia — instead of the broader strategic picture arrive at optimistic assessments of the state of the conflict.

Zaluzhnyi returned to a view he has advanced since 2023, describing the current conflict as a positional war of attrition shaped by drones, surveillance, and precision-strike capabilities.

"This is no longer a war of swift manoeuvres. It is a war of attrition," Zaluzhnyi said. "Every tactical gain now comes at an extraordinary cost. Positions can be taken, but holding them, reinforcing them and evacuating the wounded has become increasingly difficult under constant drone surveillance. Success on the battlefield is measured in metres rather than miles, and often at a price that bears little relation to its strategic value."

Zaluzhnyi's words will be viewed by many as an implicit critique of his successor ascommander-in-chief, Gen. Oleksandr Syrskyi. Syrskyi has come under repeated criticism for launching what many consider to be poorly planned and ill-conceived offensive operations, often led by the Assault Forces, a specialized branch of the Armed Forces of Ukraine that answers directly to Syrskyi and has a reputation for taking high casualties during its operations.
Zaluzhnyi argues that the war's attritional logic goes beyond individual battles and operations, with neither Ukraine's nor Russia's deep-strike campaign able to deliver a knockout blow.

"Ukraine's increasingly effective strikes against Russian logistics and critical infrastructure have imposed real costs on Moscow. But these attacks are expensive, technologically demanding and ultimately reciprocal. Russia retains the ability to strike back with equal or greater force. Neither side can rely on this form of warfare to produce a decisive strategic outcome," Zaluzhnyi writes. He also argues, however, that Ukraine's campaigns of deep-strike and middle-strike operations could strengthen the country's position in any future negotiations.

Zaluzhnyi also believes that neither side is ultimately able to claim victory, with Russia unable to achieve its original war aims but able to continue a grinding war of attrition and Ukraine able to maintain its independence but unable to forcibly remove Russian forces from Ukrainian territory.

"Wars of attrition do not produce clear winners in the conventional sense. They are decided by endurance," Zaluzhnyi writes. He adds a note of caution that Ukraine's endurance depends "heavily upon continued backing from its allies," which he believes shows signs of fraying.

"Political changes in Washington and persistent divisions within Europe raise legitimate questions about whether today's level of support can be maintained indefinitely," Zaluzhnyi writes.

'Another Russian air terrorist eliminated' — Ukraine downs Su-35

Ukrainian forces downed a Russian Su-35 multi-role fighter jet "in the eastern direction," Ukraine's Air Force said on July 8.

"​​Today another Russian air terrorist was eliminated," it said in a post on social media without providing further details.

The Su-35 is used by Russian forces for a range of roles, including dropping glide bombs on Ukrainian territory from the safety of territory under Russian control.

Ukraine currently lacks an effective way to counter them but a recent announcement could change that.

Ukraine will soon have a new weapon — Swedish Gripen fighter jets armed Meteor missiles, which can hit targets farther away than any missile Ukrainian pilots have now.

That extra range could help blunt one of Russia's most destructive weapons by pushing Russian pilots to drop guided bombs from farther behind the front line — shrinking how far those bombs can reach, Ukrainian military aviation expert Andrii Kharuk told the Kyiv Independent.

"Here there are two factors: material, or physical, and psychological," Kharuk said.

"The psychological factor is constraining Russian aviation because of the danger, or fear, of being hit. This would force them to move the lines from which they drop guided aerial bombs deeper into their own rear."