Two killed amid EU weapons surge
Kyiv buried its dead from Russian missiles two days after the EU unlocked €1bn for Ukraine's drone war, as Rheinmetall's order book heads for €135bn.
Russian missiles killed two people and wounded a 16-year-old boy in Kyiv on Thursday, two days after the EU signed a deal to bankroll Ukraine’s drone war.
Ballistic missiles struck the Sviatoshynskyi and Darnytskyi districts overnight, wounding six in total. Hours earlier, a guided bomb killed three people in Zaporizhzhia, a child among the injured. Across Ukraine on the Wednesday alone, 13 people were killed and around 50 hurt in strikes on Odesa, Sumy and the Dnipropetrovsk and Donetsk regions.
EU-Ukraine drone deal signed hours before Russian missile strike The timing is the story. On Wednesday, in Kyiv’s Saint Michael’s Square, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and President Volodymyr Zelenskyy signed an EU-Ukraine “Drone Deal”, releasing €1bn immediately for drone purchases and confirming a further €10bn pipeline for drones, missiles and Gripen fighter jets. Von der Leyen said the deal would “combine our strengths”. Zelenskyy said Ukraine was building 10 million drones a year, “and it will be 20 million”.
The money comes from the EU’s €90bn Ukraine Support Loan, raised on capital markets after Belgium, holding most of the bloc’s frozen Russian assets, blocked their direct seizure over fears of retaliation. Kyiv is due to repay only once it receives “war reparations from Moscow”, a political hope, not a mechanism that exists.
Britain is in the same pipeline. The government has committed £750m, drawn from its own £2.26bn loan against frozen Russian assets, for 150,000 Ukrainian-made drones and air-defence missiles. Its Defence Investment Plan adds £5bn for drones and £8bn for stealth fighters built with Japan and Italy, sold at home as 5,000 UK jobs at firms including Saab UK in Fareham and Leonardo UK in Edinburgh.
Who the money reaches
It reaches Rheinmetall, whose order backlog is on course to roughly double to €135bn this year after a 2025 that saw sales rise 29% and profits hit a record €1.84bn. It reaches Saab, which posted record orders in the second quarter, its shares up 284% over the past year. None of that borrowed billion stopped a missile.
The deal did not cause Thursday’s strikes; Moscow’s missiles and the killing of a girl and her grandmother in Bryansk by Ukrainian shelling both belong to a war that predates this week’s signing. But the United Nations recorded June as the deadliest month for Ukrainian civilians since 2022, at least 293 killed, and peace talks remain stalled. The arms pipeline is widening while the diplomatic one stays shut.
Rheinmetall’s backlog is heading for €135bn. Nobody signed anything for the boy in the Kyiv ward.
