Robert Brovdi, commander of Ukraine’s Unmanned Systems Forces, told the Associated Press that his units are currently operating at only 14 percent of the capacity needed for a full campaign in Crimea. The campaign aims to make the peninsula unusable as a Russian military staging ground.
According to Brovdi, Ukraine has destroyed more than 300 Russian air defense systems in recent months, including surface-to-air missiles, radar stations, and electronic warfare systems. During four major Russian missile attacks from Crimea, only five missiles were fired in total, he said – a sign of the systematic destruction of Russian air defenses. The AP could not independently verify these figures.
Ukraine’s defense industry can produce the needed drones itself, Brovdi said, but funding from Western partners is arriving too slowly. “It’s the banal problem of untimely funding – our partners provide it, but it moves much slower than our plans,” he said. Russia is also expanding its electronic warfare capabilities in Crimea to disrupt Starlink connections.
Source: www.kyivpost.com
