Russia and Ukraine struck one another with a whole bunch of drones on Sunday, throwing Russian air travel in disarray, shortly after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy announced deals with Western partners that will allow Kyiv to scale up drone production.
Zelenskyy said on Saturday that Ukraine had inked deals with European allies and a number one U.S. defense company to step up drone production, ensuring Kyiv receives “a whole bunch of hundreds” more this yr.
Zelenskyy didn’t name the U.S. business in his nightly video address to Ukrainians, but said Ukraine and Denmark have also agreed to co-produce drones and other weapons on Danish soil.
His remarks got here days after the U.S. paused some shipments of military aid to Ukraine, including crucial air defense missiles. Ukraine’s essential European backers are considering how they can assist pick up the slack. Zelenskyy said plans are afoot to accumulate Ukraine’s domestic arms industry, but scaling up will take time.
Ukraine has previously used homemade drones to hit high-value military targets deep inside Russia, demonstrating its capabilities and denting Moscow’s confidence. Last month, Kyiv said it destroyed greater than 40 Russian planes stationed at several airfields deep inside Russia in a surprise attack.
Outmanned and outgunned, Ukraine’s army has also turned to drones to compensate for its troop shortage and shore up its defenses. While Russia has ramped up offensives this summer on two fronts in Ukraine, analysts say the front isn’t about to collapse.
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Photos circulating on social media showed crowds huddling at Russian airports including key international hubs in Moscow and St. Petersburg, as a whole bunch of flights were delayed or canceled as a consequence of Ukrainian drone strikes on Saturday and overnight, in accordance with Russia’s Transport Ministry.
The flight disruptions hit Moscow’s Sheremetyevo and St. Petersburg’s essential Pulkovo airports. Other airports in western and central Russia also faced disruptions.
Russian air defenses shot down 120 Ukrainian drones through the nighttime attacks, and 39 more before 2 p.m. Moscow time (1100 GMT) on Sunday, Russia’s Defense Ministry said. It didn’t make clear what number of had hit targets, or what number of had been launched in total.
Early on Sunday, Ukrainian drones injured two civilians in Russia’s Belgorod region near the border, its Gov. Vyacheslav Gladkov said Sunday.
Russia pounded Kyiv last week
The Ukrainian attacks got here just days after Russia pummelled Kyiv with waves of drones and missiles overnight into Friday, in what Ukrainian officials called the biggest such strike since Moscow’s all-out invasion. The seven-hour onslaught killed at the very least two civilians, wounded dozens more and caused widespread damage, Ukraine said, while Moscow ramped up its push to capture more of its neighbor’s land.
In total, Russia launched 550 drones and missiles across Ukraine that night, in accordance with the country’s air force. The barrages have coincided with a concerted Russian effort to interrupt through parts of the roughly 1,000-kilometer (620-mile) front line, where Ukrainian troops are under severe pressure.
Large-scale Russian drone strikes on Sunday injured three civilians in Kyiv and at the very least two in Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city within the northeast, officials said. A Russian attack involving Shahed drones also targeted port infrastructure in Mykolaiv in central Ukraine, in accordance with local Gov. Vitaliy Kim. He reported warehouses and the port’s power grid were damaged but there have been no casualties.
Hours later, Russia launched a glide bomb and a drone on the front-line town of Kostyantynivka in eastern Ukraine, killing 4 civilians and injuring a fifth, the prosecutor’s office said. The drone struck a automobile wherein a married couple were travelling, killing the 39-year-old woman and 40-year-old man on the spot, it said.
On Friday, Zelenskyy said he had a “very essential and productive” phone call that day with U.S. President Donald Trump, discussing possible joint drone production alongside U.S-led efforts to finish the war.
Trump said his phone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday left him “very dissatisfied,” adding he didn’t think Putin was serious about ending the fighting.
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