How the West is helping Ukraine beat Russia’s missiles

began screeching just after 9am on October 11th in Taras Shevchenko park in Odessa. Ukraine’s state emergency service was warning of a “high probability of missile strikes”, advising citizens to get to bomb shelters and stay there. Many locals, inured to such alarms after seven months of war, continued to stroll along the park’s tree-lined promenades and enjoy its views of the Black Sea, though others headed for safety. By noon Ukraine’s armed forces said they had shot down three drones in the area. Meanwhile in Zaporizhia, Vinnitsa and Lviv, where the city’s mayor said they hit a dam and knocked out part of the electricity system. Twenty cruise missiles were shot down, according to officials.It was the second consecutive day of large-scale Russian missile attacks on civilian neighbourhoods and infrastructure, though it was not nearly as serious as the first. On October 10th Russia launched 83 missiles at cities across Ukraine, killing at least 19 people. Ukraine said it had shot down 43 of those, but it still relies mainly on Soviet-era defence systems such as the Buk and the S-300, and its supplies of surface-to-air missiles are gradually being exhausted. (One video even showed a Ukrainian soldier shooting down a cruise missile with a shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missile.) Modern integrated Western anti-aircraft and anti-missile systems are far more sophisticated, and Ukraine has been lobbying America and European countries for months to provide them. After the attacks Joe Biden spoke to Volodymyr Zelensky, Ukraine’s president, and promised that new systems were on the way. What sorts of air-defence kit might Ukraine receive, and why has it been slow in coming?