Only one Ukrainian drone battalion, “Achilles”, specialized in unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) attacks, of Kiev’s 92nd Assault Brigade, operates an average of 3,000 first-person view drones per month. However, they do not prefer some Western-made weapons or the most advanced unmanned aerial vehicles just because they cannot do this job.

The battalion’s executive officer, Rustem Nurgudin, told a briefing to defense companies and journalists in London that “the best examples of weapons such as systems such as GPS-guided Excalibur artillery shells” were “not working at all.”

“The best drones can’t fly,” he said.

Drones have defined the war in Ukraine for more than two and a half years; The update cycle of the designs took place in less than a month. Kiev’s domestic industry produces drones, and Ukrainian officials say the war-torn country can produce millions of drones each year. Kiev also has a new branch of its military dedicated solely to drone warfare.

Kyiv officials emphasized that the problem is financing. Ukraine’s former strategic industries minister Oleksandr Kamyshin, who oversees Kiev’s defense industry, said Ukraine’s capacity far outpaces the money funneled to more than 250 companies involved in drone production.

“This is so frustrating, so embarrassingKamyshin, who is now a presidential adviser on strategic affairs focusing on the military-industrial complex, said “being capable, but not having enough resources for the defense industry.” news week In Kiev in mid-September.

But added to the mix is ​​electronic warfare and the ability to jam, launch and shut down navigation systems on weapons flying across the battlefield every day.

While Ukraine’s international backers have donated their own drones and many types of weapons to the war effort, experts say the vast majority of them are ill-suited to the ever-evolving front lines across eastern Ukraine and along the Russian border.

Some Western-made unmanned aerial vehicles struggle to overcome dense electronic warfare systems on the battlefield. Another factor is cost; Kyiv is burning drones, which means they can’t be expensive.

Between NATO Nurgudin said countries and their militaries “no one understands what’s going on.” He added that there was still a misunderstanding about what “current” war was like, drawing heavily on information given in wars such as Afghanistan and Iraq.

The UAV battalion was first deployed around Kharkiv before heading towards Bakhmut, the Donetsk city that Russia has controlled for about a year and a half. The soldiers were then sent back to Kharkiv to fight around the city of Kupiansk, Nurgudin said.

Moscow forces have taken control of Kruhliakivka near Kupiansk, the Russian Defense Ministry said on Wednesday.

The Ukrainian army did not accept that the agreement was reached.

Fighting has flared in Kharkiv since the early days of the full-scale war, and much of the northeastern Ukrainian region was captured by Russia in 2022 before a lightning Ukrainian counter-offensive saw Moscow regain control over much of the region.

The front lines in Kharkiv have been relatively static in the nearly two years since then, but Moscow launched a cross-border offensive into the interior of northern Kharkiv earlier this year.

The US-based Institute for the Study of War said on Saturday that Russia had not made any confirmed advances on the front line stretching from east of Kupiansk to west of the Russian-controlled cities of Svatove and Kreminna in eastern Luhansk. area.

The village of Pershotravneve, west of Svatove, was captured, the Russian Defense Ministry said on Saturday.

He said whether Russia advances on Kupiansk depends on how much stockpile of shells Ukraine has that it can load into its artillery systems, whether it has enough anti-aircraft systems to go after Russian jets, and how many fighters have arrived in the area.

“For example, we do not know how many North Korean soldiers will appear before us unexpectedly,” Nurgudin said.

Ukrainian, South Korean and Western intelligence have said in recent weeks that North Korea would send between 10,000 and 12,000 troops to Russia to support Moscow’s war effort against Kiev.

The United States said Thursday that about 8,000 people were deployed along the border with Ukraine. “We have not yet seen these troops engage in combat against Ukrainian forces, but we expect that to happen in the coming days,” the US Secretary of State said. Antony BlinkingAt a joint press conference with the US Secretary of Defense, he said: Lloyd Austinand South Korean Foreign and Defense Ministers Cho Tae-yul and Kim Yong-hyun.