While Ukraine suffered new Russian strikes that left at least four dead on the night of Monday to Tuesday, the day after one of the most “massive” attacks since the beginning of the conflict, President Zelensky highlights Kiev’s capabilities, real or not, to retaliate. And multiplies the announcements of the development of new weapons, capable of facing the Russian response.
On Tuesday, the Ukrainian president announced at the Independence Forum that his country had successfully tested the first-ever Ukrainian-made ballistic missile. “It may be too early to talk about it, but I want to share it with you,” Zelensky said, without providing further details about the missile.
Long-range drones
This announcement comes three days after the Ukrainian president confirmed, still during this same forum and with supporting video, the existence of a missile-launching drone, also developed by kyiv. Named Palianytsia, in reference to the name of a traditional Ukrainian bread, this drone is said to be much more powerful and faster than those already equipping the Ukrainian army. And for good reason, even if its precise technical characteristics are again kept secret, it is equipped with a jet engine.
According to the daily newspaper “The Kyev Independent” this drone can strike a target at “long distance” and with it, about twenty Russian military airfields would now be “within striking range.” “This is our new method of response to the aggressor. The enemy has been hit. I thank all those who developed it. I am proud of you,” said the Ukrainian president on Sunday, explaining that the development of the missile took a year and a half and that it is more expensive than other drones of the same type. He also promised to increase the production of long-range attack drones “designed in Ukraine to destroy the offensive potential of the enemy.”
A military budget of 1.4 billion dollars
Because if the Ukrainian army remains largely dependent on equipment supplied by the West, starting with the Americans, kyiv is working hard to be able to manufacture its own weapons. The Ukrainian government has planned a budget of nearly 1.4 billion dollars in 2024 to purchase but also develop weapons on its own territory. A sum 20 times larger than before the Russian invasion.
But it is often small equipment and especially ammunition that has become a real mass consumption item for Ukrainian soldiers. A private mortar factory, inaugurated last year in western Ukraine, produces about 20,000 shells per month. With the ambition of eventually producing 100,000 per month. According to Oleksandr Kamyshin, Ukrainian Minister of Strategic Industries, in the space of a year, the production of mortar shells in Ukraine has increased 40-fold. And that of artillery ammunition has almost tripled, he said.
The country is also seeing a proliferation of drone startups, with the government investing about $1 billion in the technology, in addition to its defense budget. One example is the Leleka-100, a drone manufactured by the company DeViRo that allows the Ukrainian army to collect valuable information on Russian positions, and thus gain in precision when firing.
At the end of 2023, Volodymyr Zelensky had also assured that his country would produce a million drones in 2024 to meet the needs of the army, these machines having established themselves as essential on the battlefield. Easily modifiable, including with simple 3D printers, these drones replace grenade launchers but also target an adversary in the trench opposite, and even film the result of the attack. A booming sector even if the supply of drones manufactured in the West, and in particular in France, is still popular and necessary.
A multitude of improvised devices
This development of locally manufactured military equipment has become a priority. “We now produce in a month what we used to produce in a year,” said Vladislav Belbas, general director of Ukrainian Armor, which manufactures a wide range of military vehicles, recently.
kyiv produces, in particular, the “Bohdana” self-propelled guns, about which, in mid-July, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky had stated that they were being produced in “significant numbers.” He then added that “among all European factories, I would say that our company produces the largest number of artillery systems per month.”
Not forgetting that alongside the traditional equipment manufactured by the defence industries, a multitude of weapons and devices often cobbled together from captured Russian equipment or even diverted civilian devices are found on the front line. The Ukrainian and Russian battlefields are thus full of military buggies armed with machine guns and manufactured for example on the basis of Lada cars. Not forgetting the rocket launchers or heavy machine guns improved on the ground in order to be more efficient.
So many devices that are not just anecdotal or close to light weapons. Some of this equipment can be impressive, however. Like this “tank killer” device revealed in 2022. It had been manufactured on the basis of an MT-LB, a Russian armored transport vehicle, on which had been fixed an anti-tank gun also of Russian manufacture. And taken from the enemy during combat.
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