Ukraine says Russia plans big boost in drone production
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Ukraine’s top military commander says Russia has no interest in talks leading to a peace deal and, instead, is boosting arms production, including a target of 1000 drones per day.
“On the contrary, we see an increase in intensity of military actions, an increase in the number of offensive enemy groupings, an increase in production of strike weapons, missiles and drones,” Oleksandr Syrskyi told the online media outlet lb.ua in an interview published on Sunday.
“At the moment, the enemy produces daily 404 ‘Shaheds’ (Iranian-designed drones) of different kinds. And the plans are to increase that. The enemy plans to boost production significantly, up to 1000 drones a day.”
Ukraine’s military, he said, has to do “everything to disrupt these plans and inflict losses so that the enemy renounces its plans, and also to create conditions in order to hold talks. No one is going to make a deal with a weak side”.
Syrskyi also praised the Ukrainian military’s “deep-strike” tactics, which he described as “our strong point,” resulting in hits on 719 targets and $US15 billion ($A22 billion) in damage, mainly to Russia’s oil industry.
Ukraine has rapidly developed its capacity to produce drones since Russia launched its invasion in February 2022 and is counting on further advances.
Russian forces hold about 20 per cent of Ukrainian territory and are engaged in a slow advance through eastern Ukraine, announcing the capture of new villages several times a week.
Military leaders have stressed the importance of developing “interceptor drones” as the most efficient and economical means of combating Russian drone attacks, rather than using missiles.
Syrskyi acknowledged that Russia had the possibility to draw on far higher numbers to deploy in its units, but said mobilisation figures had improved in recent months.
“I can say this: we have much improved numbers in this regard than was the case, say, seven months ago,” he told lb.ua.
Meanwhile, hundreds of thousands in Russian-occupied parts of southern Ukraine have been left without power, according to Kremlin-installed authorities there.
Moscow has kept up its hammering of Ukraine’s energy grid in overnight attacks that killed at least two people, according to Ukrainian officials.
More than 200,000 households in the Russian-held part of Ukraine’s southern Zaporizhzhia region had no electricity on Sunday, according to the Kremlin-installed local governor.
In a Telegram post, Yevgeny Balitsky said nearly 400 settlements have had their supply cut, due to damage to power networks from Ukrainian drone strikes.
Russia has hammered Ukraine’s power grid, especially in winter, throughout the almost four-year war. It aims to weaken Ukrainians’ will to resist in a strategy that Kyiv officials call “weaponising winter.”
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on X that repairing the country’s energy system remained challenging, “but we are doing everything we can to restore everything as quickly as possible”.
He said two people were killed in overnight attacks across the country that struck Sumy, Kharkiv, Dnipro Zaporizhzhia, Khmelnytskyi and Odesa.
In total over 1300 attack drones, 1050 guided aerial bombs and 29 missiles of various types were used by Russia to strike Ukraine this week, he added.
“If Russia deliberately delays the diplomatic process, the world’s response should be decisive: more help for Ukraine and more pressure on the aggressor,” Zelenskiy said.
He spoke the day after a Ukrainian delegation arrived in the United States for talks on a US-led diplomatic push to end the nearly four-year-old war.
Reuters
