Ukraine war briefing: We will build missiles the way we built drones – Zelenskyy
On the day that Kyiv mourned its dead, the head of the UN appeared to put the blame for civilian casualties on both sides. “These
On the day that Kyiv mourned its dead, the head of the UN appeared to put the blame for civilian casualties on both sides. “These latest series of attacks follow an alarming pattern of escalating strikes against populated areas,” said Farhan Haq, a spokesperson for António Guterres, the UN secretary general. “The secretary general strongly condemns the latest large-scale missile and drone attacks by the armed forces of the Russian Federation on Kyiv and other cities in Ukraine … [Guterres] also condemns the recent Ukrainian drone attacks on several regions of the Russian Federation.” Russia has adjusted its rhetoric lately to claim that its evident strikes killing Ukrainian civilians are targeting military facilities, or militarised civilian sites such as warehouses, ports and logistics depots, while portraying Ukrainian strikes on military and economic targets in Russia as being aimed at civilians. Russian forces have continually bombarded civilians with anti-personnel explosive FPV drones in Ukrainian centres including Kherson, Zaporizhzhia and Kharkiv. The Kyiv region observed an official day of mourning on Thursday after a Russian missile and drone blitz killed 17 people the previous day. In the first six months of this year, 1,396 civilians were killed and 7,978 injured in Ukraine, the UN office in Kyiv said on Wednesday.
That was a 37% increase from the same period last year and a 114% jump over 2024, it said, attributing the rise to more long-range aerial attacks by Russia. Zelenskyy said on Thursday night that he had met with senior officials on how to accelerate development “so that Ukrainian weapons manufacturers and developers can deliver real results … We are creating all the necessary conditions to make that happen.” On the offensive side, “ Ukraine is also working to develop ballistic missiles of its own. The tests have shown strong potential. We need to turn this into a real weapon.” Volodymr Zelenskyy has said he wants “concrete results” by the end of this year on producing an anti-ballistic missile defence system for Ukraine. Zelenskyy referred to Ukraine’s role in the Freyja programme to jointly develop a European anti-ballistic system as an alternative to Patriot. “ Ukraine is capable of producing its missile and launcher, while our partners will provide the necessary components and critical elements – radars, sensors, and everything else required … Others spent decades developing their systems. Ukraine must do this as quickly as possible, with concrete results already in place by the turn of 2026–2027.” A drone carrying explosives that was found at Leipzig airport had come down near a Ukrainian aircraft loaded with military ammunition, according to a classified police report quoted by the German public broadcasters WDR and NDR and the Süddeutsche newspaper.
The BriefWire