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CM Constant Méheut On The Daily (NYT)

“At the beginning of the year, Ukraine was intercepting from 30 to 40% of the ballistic missiles. And that gave you a sense of safety. Not great, but safer than nothing. Now, Ukraine is intercepting about 10% at best. And some nights, they're not even intercepting any of them.”

The Daily (NYT) · October 2026

“At the beginning of the year, Ukraine was intercepting from 30 to 40% of the ballistic missiles. And that gave you a sense of safety. Not great, but safer than nothing. Now, Ukraine is intercepting about 10% at best. And some nights, they're not even intercepting any of them.” — Constant Méheut, The Daily (NYT)

The reporter is describing Russia's winter campaign against Ukraine's energy system and the country's shortage of air-defense interceptors. Asked how many ballistic missiles are now getting through, he gives the numbers.

The Daily (NYT) · 2026-10-19 Listen to the episode → More from Constant Méheut →

Transcript

The Daily (NYT) Around 11:23 into the episode
Speaker 3

Do you have a sense of how many of those ballistic

Natalie Kitroeff

missiles are actually getting through?

Constant Méheut

Yeah, at the beginning of the year, Ukraine was intercepting from 30 to 40% of the ballistic missiles. And that gave you a sense of safety. Not great, but safer than nothing. Now, Ukraine is intercepting about 10% at best. And some nights, they're not even intercepting any of them.

Speaker 3

Whoa.

Constant Méheut

On top of this, you have the issue of the drones. So Ukraine used to be really good at shooting down the traditional drones that Russia was sending. They would use a range of different weapons, machine guns, helicopters, short-range rockets. But then Russia over the summer introduced a new class of…

Speaker 3

Yes, please do. What is a jet-powered drone?

Speaker names from our own diarization · position estimated from where the line sits in the episode

More from The Daily (NYT)

“This is not a country that will capitulate because of this bombing campaign. Yet, this is the only card that Russia has to play and wants to play… This doesn't mean that this is the end of Ukraine. We're not looking right now at the end of the war, but we're looking at a kind of weakening that is potentially irreversible.” — Constant Méheut, The Daily (NYT) “I mean, she's a genius at saying nothing. And you're left with this question: is she the most naive human being in the world or the most cynical? And my take coming out was there's nothing in between.” — Jason Zinoman, The Daily (NYT)