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16-02-2024
KYIV/ WASHINGTON/ MOSCOW: Ukraine changed its military leadership and announced a change of tactics in the past week, as a vote in the US Senate brought renewed hope of US aid for the embattled country.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy appointed ground forces Commander Oleksandr Syrskii as commander-in-chief of the armed forces on February 8. Zelenskyy reportedly asked the outgoing Valery Zaluzhny to “continue to be part of the team”, without specifying what that meant.
“We stood against a vile and powerful enemy. Endured together,” wrote Zaluzhny, an immensely popular general who stopped Russia’s invasion in February 2022 and ordered a counterattack in August that year, which claimed more than 1,500sq km (580sq miles)
Since then, Ukrainian forces have become bogged down in positional warfare. A counteroffensive last summer failed to achieve its goal of cutting the Russian front in two.
“The tasks of 2022 are different from the tasks of 2024,” Zaluzhny wrote.
In his first meeting with Rustem Umyerov, the defence minister, the following day Syrskii said drones and electronic warfare would play a greater role – something Zaluzhny had also said shortly before his dismissal.
Ukraine has set a goal of building a million small drones – essentially flying bombs – this year.
Prime Minister Denys Shmyal said the government’s primary goal was to develop high-tech defence industries during a budget meeting on Tuesday, with $1bn going to drones alone.
“We are talking about the developments of the Defence Tech cluster, scaling up the production of drones of various categories, electronic warfare,” Shmyal said.
Mykhailo Fedorov, minister for digital transformation, told Reuters the number and range of Ukraine’s domestically built drones were dramatically increasing.
“In December alone, drone deliveries were 50 times higher than in the entire 2022,” he said.
Ukraine’s defence ministry launched a web form for Ukrainians to become involved in a community of innovators to “help solve the most difficult challenges at the front”, and is seeking to build a 10:1 technological advantage over Russia.
This strategy has been showing results.
Two long-range drones struck Russian oil refineries in Ilsky and Afipsky in Krasnodar Krai on Friday. Geolocated footage showed smoke rising from the refineries.
Ukrainian naval drones sank the Russian Landing ship Caesar Kunikov off the southern tip of the Crimean Peninsula on Wednesday. Ukrainian military intelligence’s Group 13 used Magura-V surface drones in the attack. (Int’l Monitoring Desk)
