With fighting between Russia and Ukraine largely stalled on the front lines, the air war between them has intensified. Ukraine launches drone attacks deep into Russian territory, and Moscow rains ballistic missiles down on Kyiv.

That’s not going well for Ukraine, which is out of the defensive weapons that keep Kyiv safe from Russian salvos.

A Russian attack there yesterday left at least 15 people dead and around 40 injured. The strikes damaged residential buildings, a school and a children’s hospital. You could hear the thunder of the exploding missiles deep below ground, in a subway station where civilians had taken shelter, reported The Times’s Constant Méheut. Some 40,000 residents slept in the subway system that night, the local authorities said.

Russia “had been preparing for a long time,” President Volodymyr Zelensky said on social media, and its attack combined “different types of ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, and drones, aiming to cause as much damage as possible to civilian infrastructure.” He had said earlier that the number of air defense missiles supplied by Ukraine’s Western allies had dropped threefold from the year before.

That number’s not likely to rise any time soon, Constant wrote a few weeks ago:

Western allies are more hesitant to give up missiles they may need for their own defense as war rages on multiple fronts, including in the Middle East, where fighting has whittled global stockpiles.

Even if Ukraine’s partners did heed Mr. Zelensky’s call, they could not fully meet the country’s needs. Russia produces ballistic missiles faster than the West can make the interceptors designed to stop them.

The effects of the attacks are chilling. Civilian deaths in Ukraine have risen under the barrages, with nearly 1,400 civilians killed in the first six months of this year, according to the United Nations. That’s 37 percent more than in the same period in 2025 and more than double the figure from 2024.

A city under siege

The missiles have also destroyed food warehouses and distribution centers. For the first time since Russia’s 2022 invasion, report Kim Barker and Oleksandra Mykolyshyn, the shelves of Kyiv’s grocery stores are going bare.

Supplies of dairy products, meat and fresh produce have dwindled. At one shop in Kyiv, the reporters discovered, “the only produce remaining were six mushy avocados and the papery skins of a few onions and garlic bulbs.”

One shopper they spoke with called the situation a nightmare. She had only bread and herring in her cart. “I’m horrified,” she said. “I wanted to buy sugar, but I looked and there wasn’t any. And there’s an entire section over there that’s completely empty. I didn’t even go in there. I don’t want to look at it and upset myself.”

But there was also dark humor. The supermarket had posted signs blaming Russia for the shortages but also advising stoicism in the face of them, short poems with blank spaces in them encouraging customers to offer their own reactions. One read:

Russia ___ probably ___ hoped this would be our end ___ and bring only sorrow but here we have anger ___ new ideas and ___ gratitude ___ for our people.

Trump is bringing an IndyCar race to Washington on Sunday. It’ll go around the National Mall 147 times. Scroll through our map to see what it will feel like to race this unique course.

OPINIONS

Electricians love data centers, Don Slaiman, a union representative for electrical workers, writes. He explains why you should, too.

So bad it’s good: “The Bull Is Coming” has a baffling plot and terrible graphics, but this low-budget film is a hit in China, where fans are celebrating its authenticity in the age of A.I.

Death by trebuchet: Researchers believe a young man found buried at a Scottish castle is the first confirmed victim of the fearsome siege weapon.

Your pick: The most-clicked story in The Morning yesterday was about Prince Harry and Meghan’s move back to Britain. See a timeline.

TODAY’S NUMBER

$5.1 million

— That is how much a private buyer spent on a 2023 one-of-one Victor Wembanyama sports card this year. His financial advisers suggested he could have bought a house instead. “I say the difference is the one or two percent of billionaires in the world don’t really, really, really want my house,” he told The Athletic. “But they f—ing want that card.”

SPORTS

Tennis: Carlos Alcaraz said he’ll return to play the U.S. Open as its reigning champion next week. He’s been tending to a wrist injury since April.

Soccer: The Georgia women’s team set an N.C.A.A. soccer attendance record with more than 25,000 spectators at a game.

RECIPE OF THE DAY

Here’s a fun Friday night feed for kids and those who feel like them: bacon cheeseburger meatballs, with a classic fast-foodish mayo-mustardy burger sauce on the side. Serve with oven fries and slices of onion and tomato.

FEELING THIS

Travis Barker has been a pop-punk star and hip-hop collaborator for decades. He lived hard, survived a deadly plane crash, got sober, does breath work. He keeps a low profile but married a Kardashian. He’s a dad. And throughout it all, he’s been a drummer, playing loudly, fast and with as much power as he can manage.

“I think scars are cool,” Barker said recently in an interview on Popcast, The Times’s pop-culture chat show. “I’ve never left a show where I’m a bloody mess, or my hands are a mess, and be like, I wish I didn’t play the way I did.”

More on culture

• Is “Life of M,” the new novel from Rachel Cusk, about the actress Natalie Portman? Cusk’s not saying. “The book explains itself and defends itself pretty comprehensively, and it’s something I created,” she told The Times, “so to start to explain it kind of ruins it for me.”

• Let’s go to the movies this weekend. Here are eight new films our critics are talking about.

THE MORNING RECOMMENDS

Pick a $1.5 million home in South Florida. I’m going with the bungalow in Key West, but you do you.

Play our summer reading game and we’ll find just the right end-of-season book for you.

Travel to the Cotswolds, in England, if only in your imagination. The place names alone are relaxing: Stow-on-the-Wold, Castle Combe, Malmesbury Abbey.

Take our news quiz.

GAMES